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London-based artificial intelligence startup Synthesia said it has secured a $2.1 billion valuation, bolstering the British group's efforts to outcompete global rivals within the race to develop generative-based applications and tools to challenge AI.
The company, which uses AI to create realistic, human-based video avatars, said on Wednesday it has closed a brand new $180 million funding round led by US enterprise capital group NEA. Existing investors Google Ventures and Accel Partners also participated within the round. Previous investors include Silicon Valley heavyweight Nvidia.
Synthesia chief executive Victor Riparbelli said the deal signaled investors' enthusiasm for the UK AI sector, which is home to Google's AI arm DeepMind in addition to leading universities comparable to Oxford and Cambridge, which have a robust track record of manufacturing leading experts have on this area.
“The UK is currently the one country within the European region that has an actual likelihood of becoming one in all the highest three AI superpowers,” Riparbelli said in an interview with the Financial Times.
British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer on Monday unveiled latest AI policies aimed toward boosting economic growth, saying he believes Britain shall be “one of the best place to start out and scale an AI company.”
However, the amounts raised by tech groups within the UK and Europe are dwarfed by those available within the US and China. Critics indicate that European start-ups are also hindered by stricter regulation of AI models.
“We have the branding problem within the UK that the federal government can do a bit more to inform the world that we’re open for business, to encourage people to return here (and never through over-regulation or an excessive amount of change in tax policy to mess up,” he told Riparbelli.
Founded in 2017, Synthesia employs 400 people in offices in London, New York and across Europe.
It primarily uses proprietary AI models to model humans and develop avatars that could be stimulated by text and reproduce speech in a sensible video. The company said it’s going to use the brand new funding to make the avatars more lifelike, with a deal with helping corporations create these avatars for corporate communications.
“There remains to be a variety of work to be done to make them more natural and photorealistic.” . . This allows them to choose up objects and talk over with one another in the identical room,” Riparbelli added.
“The things we're investing in are all about dialogue through people's videos, so we won't be busy making a video of a dog skateboarding on the beach, but (as a substitute) making a presenter for one Develop marketing video.”
The company has previously been embroiled in controversy over the creation of so-called “deepfakes” – digital likenesses of real people. In a 2023 incident, Synthesia's technology was used to create fake online news reports in Venezuela. The company said on the time that the Venezuelan customer was subsequently banned from using its service.
According to Companies House filings, Synthesia had sales of £25.7 million last yr, with the vast majority of sales coming from outside Europe. For the yr ended December 31, the corporate reported losses after tax of £23.6 million.
Its competitors include startups like HeyGen, a Los Angeles-based company that raised $60 million in June 2024, and New York-based ElevenLabs, which focuses on voice cloning, in January last yr raised $80 million.
Synthesia charges on a subscription basis for the flexibility to create a presenter-led video during which text could be read aloud and translated into different languages. The company said greater than half of the Fortune 100 corporations use its software, and its customers include Zoom, Xerox and Microsoft.
“We're constructing something we call PowerPoint 2.0 for the typical office employee,” Riparbelli added. “It’s not super creative content; It is informative and academic content. These are individuals who don’t have time to sit down down and toast something 40 times to get something really interesting.”
