AI startups are rapidly on the rise – and Synthesia is the latest to benefit from the demand for investments in the sector. The London-based firm is in talks with US venture capital giant Accel to raise funds in a deal that could value Synthesia at up to $1 billion, reports suggest.
Synthesia, founded in 2017, has developed a platform that enables users to create professional videos with a virtual avatar. This means that users are now able to create realistic virtual presenters in multiple languages using text and recordings of their own voice in just 15 minutes.
Founded by William Li, Syntheisa previously raised $50 million in 2021 in a Series B round led by Kleiner Perkins, with additional participation from GV. The high-quality video AI technology developed by the company has already been used for major campaigns such as ‘Malaria Must Die’, in which former soccer player David Beckham was animated to speak in nine different languages.
The emergence of these high-quality synthetic video technologies raised a lot of ethical and public safety awareness, resulting in Synthesia’s platform being limited for exclusive use, as mentioned on their ethics page.
The potential new funding round from Accel could potentially quadruple Synthesia’s valuation, and the company would be the latest AI startup to benefit from an increase in venture capital investment in Europe in 2021. London-based ElevenLabs also raised $100 million, while Fetch.ai and Iris Audio also secured $40 and $7 million respectively.
Synthesia is still yet to comment on the potential funding round, as details of the deal and figures are yet to be finalized. However, this news comes at an opportune time for investors, who have been increasingly keen to invest in this sector as the AI industry continues to soar.
