Generative AI Video Startup HeyGen Closing in on $60M Funding Round
Enterprise generative AI video startup HeyGen is close to securing a $60 million funding round led by Benchmark, according to a report from the Information. The money is set to come in as the company releases HeyGen 5.0, the latest version of the company’s platform.
HeyGen Video
At the core of HeyGen’s offerings is technology that transforms written text into a speech delivered by a computer-generated avatar resembling a human presenter. These virtual humans can be crafted as digital twins precisely replicating real individuals or customized by the company to achieve a desired look and persona. HeyGen also provides an “Instant Avatar” tool capable of generating avatars using only smartphone video footage.
HeyGen originally required professional photo shoots to craft bespoke avatars rendered in videos but can now generate them fully automatically from smartphone selfies in minutes rather than days. The AI-powered presenters convincingly lipsync the synthetic voice audio, which can speak across dozens of languages. Additionally, HeyGen can automatically translate submitted scripts to localize the final video output to different languages.
The new funding deal would value HeyGen at approximately $500 million when complete. The valuation is driven by its rapidly expanding revenue. HeyGen reported $20 million in annualized revenue this month, compared to $1 million last year. There’s an ever-growing circle of competitors with broadly similar technology, including Colossyan, D-ID, Synthesia, DeepBrain AI, Soul Machines, and Hour One. As Voicebot founder Bret Kinsella noted in our Synthedia newsletter.
“AI presenter video generators are interesting because they have use cases today that business users are willing to pay for and because they integrate so many elements of generative AI and synthetic media technology. The avatars, body movements, lip-synching, synthetic voices, text-to-image generators for scene backgrounds, and even large language models all work in concert to deliver a compelling product.”
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