Captions Secures $60M in Funding for AI-Powered Video Creation Platform

Ex-Microsoft engineer's AI video startup scores $60M from top VCs, Jared Leto

We want to hear from you! Take our quick AI survey and share your insights on the current state of AI, how you're implementing it, and what you expect to see in the future. Learn More As the demand for generative AI video grows, startups in this space are attracting big money from venture capital firms. Recently, RunwayML was reported to be raising a large round of funding. Now, Captions, an AI video startup founded by former Microsoft engineer Gaurav Misra, has secured $60 million in Series C funding. Founded in 2021, Captions started as a camera app in which users recorded 'talking videos' by engaging with the camera directly. Over the past year, the company has shifted its focus to AI, enabling users to create videos with avatars from scratch. It has essentially become an AI-powered creative suite for video creators. Misra stated that the investment, led by Index Ventures, values the company at $500 million. However, it's not a lone effort, as existing investors Kleiner Perkins, Sequoia Capital and Andreessen Horowitz, as well as new investors Adobe Ventures, HubSpot Ventures and actor and singer Jared Leto (who previously backed Pika) also participated in the round. Captions will use the capital to grow its ML team in New York and launch new generative innovations to position itself as the leader in the AI video space. Captions' holistic suite for AI videos From the roots of manual video creation, where users had to talk, record and edit on their own, Captions has evolved into a holistic AI-powered suite that provides everything a brand or individual needs to generate high-quality videos. To achieve this shift, the company first expanded its editing offerings with a range of AI-assisted tools, including those for correcting eye contact, dubbing a speaker's words into another language, executing human-like voiceovers and producing short clips from a longer piece of video (among other things). The features drew several million users to Captions, but the real milestone came earlier this year when it announced generative AI-driven AI Creator and AI Edit capabilities. The former allowed users to add custom 3D avatars to their video content, saving the hassle of talking manually to the audience in every video. Meanwhile, the latter provided users with the ability to tweak their content -- complete with custom graphics, B-roll, transitions and zooms -- just with a single tap. "These innovative features (have) catalyzed a new age for creativity, empowering an entirely new group of creators who otherwise may have been blocked by the barriers that come with recording or editing," Misra noted in a blog post. A lot more in the pipeline While the AI smarts have drawn a large number of users -- more than 10 million of them creating three million-plus videos every month -- to Captions, Misra says this is just the beginning for the company. With this round of funding, the startup will expand its machine learning (ML) team and invest more in in-house research and technical infrastructure to launch more AI capabilities for its video platform. "Looking to the future, we're excited to share our plans to invest $100 million into advancing generative video research here in New York City," he wrote. "We believe that New York is emerging as the epicenter for AI research and look forward to building our world-class team here." While it remains unclear what exactly Captions has in the pipeline, the move to double down on existing features could bolster the company's suite into a unified platform for producing avatar-based videos. This could make the company a strong competitor for niche players like ElevenLabs and Synthesia. The enhanced set of capabilities will also make Captions more valuable to businesses, especially those involved in social media management, advertising, content marketing and growth marketing. "Short-form video has become the most dominant content format, and Captions is uniquely positioned to transform how marketers create videos and engage with customers," said Brandon Greer, head of HubSpot Ventures. "We're excited to support Captions as they enable businesses of all sizes to produce high-quality video content faster than ever." Some notable names currently using the Captions' platform are Disney-owned sports network ESPN, "Mr. Wonderful" Kevin O'Leary of Shark Tank fame, Twitch's founder Justin Kan and the influencer Unnecessary Inventions.

Jared Leto joins Index Ventures in $60M round for generative AI video startup Captions - SiliconANGLE

Jared Leto joins Index Ventures in $60M round for generative AI video startup Captions Generative artificial intelligence video startup Captions LLC announced today that it had raised $60 million in new funding on a valuation of $500 million to advance its research of generative video technology. The round was led by Index Ventures LLP, with Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers LLC, Andreessen Horowitz, Sequoia Capital Operations LLC, Adobe Ventures, HubSpot Ventures LLC and Hollywood actor Jared Leto (pictured) also participating. Including the new funding, Captions has raised $100 million to date. Founded in 2021, Captions is building what it calls a "creative studio" that uses AI to transform the video creation process, enabling users to produce studio-grade videos with just a few taps. The company's tools include avatars, editing, captioning, dubbing and audio correction, all focused on streamlining the creative process. Generative AI's use in video has been a rapidly growing field, with players such as Luma AI Inc. emerging and OpenAI's yet-to-be-released Sora creating headlines. While Captions competes in the same space, the company differs by specializing in videos that feature a person speaking. According to Bloomberg, Caption users can type text into the software that can then be spoken by a photorealistic AI avatar. Alternatively, users can suggest a topic for the software to build a script around, such as "instructions for making a balloon dog." The dialogue can also be translated into various languages. The company's functionality is pitched as delivering a "new age for creativity, empowering an entirely new group of creators who otherwise may have been blocked by the barriers that come with recording or editing." One of Captions' tools, AI Edit, allows users to fully edit a video with one tap with another tool, Lipdub, generates natural lip movement and body language. The functionality is said to have been well received by users, with Caption's mobile app surpassing over 10 million downloads. Damir Becirovic, partner at Index Ventures, commented that "by allowing anyone to produce studio-grade video, choose whether to put themselves or an avatar in front of the camera or instantly edit footage with a tap of a button, Captions is breaking down the barriers to great storytelling and unleashing a new wave of creativity. We're excited to support them in this journey."

AI Video Startup Is Valued at $500 Million in New Funding Round - BNN Bloomberg

(Bloomberg) -- Captions, a startup that uses artificial intelligence to let people create and edit videos, has raised a new funding round from a star-studded list of investors, vaulting its valuation to $500 million. The startup raised $60 million in a deal led by Index Ventures, the company plans to announce Tuesday. That brings its total funding raised to $100 million. Other investors in the round include previous backers Kleiner Perkins, Andreessen Horowitz and Sequoia Capital, as well as new ones, like actor Jared Leto. (Leto also backed another AI video company, Pika, in June). Captions is one of a growing number of companies aiming to make it cheaper and easier to create videos with generative AI. Founded in 2021 by Gaurav Misra and Dwight Churchill, the company's software helps people make, edit and distribute videos whether or not they have filmmaking experience, said Misra, Captions' chief executive officer. As the quality of AI videos has rapidly improved, the technology has heightened fears about deepfakes. Particularly in a big year for global elections, some have raised alarms about video tools that are increasingly capable, cheap and accessible. But there is also significant demand: People publish nearly 3.5 million videos per month with Captions' app, Misra said, and more than 10 million people have downloaded it so far. Captions' users range from realtors to salespeople to educators using it in the classroom, the CEO said. "It's very wide ranging in terms of the use case -- it's wherever video is relevant, especially short-form video," he said. Captions' specialty is videos that feature a person speaking. Users can type text into the software that can then be spoken by a photorealistic AI avatar. Or they can simply write in a topic for the software to build a script around, like "instructions for making a balloon dog." The dialogue can be translated into a slew of languages. Users can also upload their own videos and translate the captions and dialogue into another language, using AI to make the translated voice sound like their own. To do all this, Captions combines its own AI models for making videos with those built by others. It employs large language models from companies such as OpenAI and Anthropic to generate text, and software from voice-cloning startup Eleven Labs Inc. to generate voices. To try to curb potential misinformation, Misra said the company made choices with the design of its software and included limitations. The app won't generate videos about some topics. For example, in a recent test by Bloomberg News, it refused to make a video including disinformation about vaccines. Misra said the rapid progress and fast-rising popularity of generative AI over the past few years have helped the company speed up the development of its own tools. The company will spend some of its new funding on research and development, along with compute power, seeking to improve its AI models. "What we thought would take 10 years takes one year now," Misra said.

Captions Raises $60 Million for AI-Powered Video Creation Platform

Captions has raised $60 million in a Series C funding round to invest in its generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) platform for creating and editing video. The company will use the new funding to grow its machine learning (ML) team and continue investing in its in-house research efforts and technical infrastructure, Captions said in a Tuesday (July 9) press release. The new funding round brings the company's total capital raised to $100 million and its valuation to $500 million, according to the release. Gaurav Misra, co-founder and CEO of Captions, said in the release that the company looks forward to "furthering our mission of democratizing video creation, so that anyone can effectively share their stories or ideas." Captions offers a suite of tools that are dedicated to recording, editing and enhancing videos in which a creator addresses the camera directly, according to the release. It also recently launched AI Creator, which lets users generate these "talking videos" entirely, the release said. This tool is being used to generate content such as organic social posts and ads for small businesses. The company's suite of tools covers avatars, editing, captioning, dubbing and audio correction, per the release. Damir Becirovic, partner at Index Ventures, which led Captions' latest funding round, said in the release that Captions' AI-enabled video creation product enables "a higher dimension of storytelling." "The company allows anyone to bring their stories to life in ways that were previously unimaginable and to truly share them with the whole world," Becirovic said. "The result will be a huge wave of incredible stories that are imagined and directed by Captions users." This announcement comes a week after it was reported that AI-powered video startup Runway is looking to raise $450 million at a valuation of $4 billion. Runway, which offers software that generates videos from text prompts or images, raised $141 million in June 2023 and was valued at $1.5 billion. In June, AI startup Luma AI unveiled a tool that can generate realistic video footage from a few lines of text, opening up new possibilities for rapid video creation. With Luma AI's Dream Machine platform, users can type in a descriptive prompt and have it rendered as a high-definition video clip generated in minutes.

Jared Leto Invests in Generative AI Video Startup

Jeff Shell and David Ellison Dish on Paramount Plans: It'll Be "Creator-Friendly Again" Jared Leto is getting into the generative artificial intelligence business. The actor and musician is among the investors in a startup called Captions, which is developing Gen AI tech in the video creation and editing space. Captions announced its Series C funding round Tuesday, which sees Leto investing alongside VC heavyweights like Kleiner Perkins, Sequoia Capital and Andreessen Horowitz, as well as Index Ventures and Adobe. The startup said that with the $60 million Series C round, which values the company at $500 million, it has now raised $100 million. Captions has released a handful of tools so far (focused mostly on videos where a person is speaking directly to the camera), including AI Creator, AI Edit, and Lipdub. Despite the modest movement so far, the promise of AI video generation has intoxicated Hollywood and silicon Valley, with AI giants like OpenAI and Anthropic releasing video generation tools of their own, and a flurry of startups specializing in the niche like Runway ML exploring the market. Leto, meanwhile, previously invested in another gen AI statup, called Pika, last month. Leto's band Thirty Seconds to Mars had explored using that company's tech in music videos, per Bloomberg. "We believe that New York is quickly emerging as the epicenter for AI, and look forward to expanding our team here and furthering our mission of democratizing video creation, so that anyone can effectively share their stories or ideas," said Gaurav Misra, co-founder and CEO of Captions. "We're grateful for the continued support from our investors and community, and excited for our next chapter." "Storytelling is humanity's most powerful trait," added Damir Becirovic, a partner at Index Ventures. "Captions is enabling a higher dimension of storytelling via their AI-enabled video creation product. The company allows anyone to bring their stories to life in ways that were previously unimaginable and to truly share them with the whole world. The result will be a huge wave of incredible stories that are imagined and directed by Captions users."

HubSpot : invests in Captions to make video creation easier than ever with AI

Captions allows anyone to generate and edit talking videos in seconds It's no secret that marketers are going all in on video content. According to HubSpot's 2024 State of Marketing Report, short-form video is now the #1 content format, delivering the highest ROI and projected to become even more dominant this year. As video demand continues to rise, AI-powered solutions like Captionshave emerged to help lean creative teams produce talking videos faster than ever. Today, we're excited to announce HubSpot Ventures' strategic investment in Captions to help marketers double down on video creation. While video content is on the rise, it's still one of the most difficult types of content to create, especially for resource-constrained marketing teams at SMBs. A one-minute clip can take hours to perfect, greatly delaying the ability to produce the steady cadence of content that's necessary to break through today's social algorithms and reach the right audience. Captions allows marketers and creators to easily tell their stories with video and reach customers faster with the help of AI. This includes: "We're thrilled to support the Captions team as they transform video production and help businesses build stronger connections with their customers," says Brandon Greer, Head of HubSpot Ventures. "As the bar continues to rise for content, marketers are stretched thin producing many different types of content across a variety of complex tools. Our investment in Captions will help equip the next generation of marketers and HubSpot customers with AI tools that simplify and enhance the content creation process." HubSpot Ventures is HubSpot's internal investing arm that invests in series A-C software companies with the potential to deliver unique value to HubSpot's customer base. We help our portfolio companies scale by providing resources that go well beyond funding like access to expert advising, coaching from senior leaders, partnership support, special event access, and more.