One of the UK’s most hyped AI startups has doubled its valuation to $2.1bn, following a $180m funding round, and has pledged that the UK will remain its headquarters.

Synthesia, founded in 2017, makes AI-powered corporate videos and has become something of a talismanic company in the UK’s burgeoning AI scene. Following its new funding round, it has now raised over $330m in total.

The London-headquartered startup, backed by Nvidia, says the new round, valuing it at $2.1bn, swelled from $1bn in 2022, means it’s the UK’s most valuable generative AI media company, citing Dealroom data.  

Stability AI, valued at $1bn in 2022, and ElevenLabs, valued at over $1bn in January last year, are other contenders.

Heading up the round was US VC firm NEA, with funding also coming from new investors WiL, Atlassian Ventures, PSP Growth and existing investors, including GV and MMC Ventures.

Founded by a team of international researchers and entrepreneurs, Synthesia said it will use the new funding to support product growth, snapping up new talent and moving into new markets.

Victor Riparbelli, CEO and co-founder, Synthesia, said:

“This new investment will help us develop a new generation of AI-powered video experiences that are interactive, real-time, and personalized, offering possibilities we could have only imagined when we founded the company in 2017.

“I’m excited to bring these experiences to our over 60,000 customers, which range from the world’s largest brands to thousands of small businesses that use Synthesia to communicate internally and externally with unmatched engagement and efficiency.”

Synthesia’s big idea is to turn plain text into engaging, lifelike videos. Leveraging AI, it lets users generate realistic avatars, which can simplify long-winded text in snappy videos.

For example, in the corporate world, its primary use case, the videos could replace corporate training manuals or a written keynote address by a CEO.

Currently, more than half of the startup’s revenues comes from the US, ahead of Europe, with plans to expand into Japan and Australia.

Headquartered in London, it has seven offices in total including New York, Munich and Zurich, with over 400 people working at Synthesia.

The startup is a B2B startup, not B2C, with 60,000 paying customers, including 60 per cent of the Fortune 100, it says.

Synthesia also has a free option for users.

Alexandru Voica, Synthesia, head of corporate affairs and policy, said:

“The profile of the average user is an office worker who uses PowerPoint or Google Docs.

“So, we want them instead of producing a PowerPoint, a PDF or Word document, we want them to make a video instead, because videos are more entertaining and engaging and you tend to remember more information.

“Very rarely do people replace traditional video with Synthesia video.”

Synthesia’s SaaS platform has been built on its own specialised AI model, albeit it’s not a foundational model company, like Anthropic or OpenAI, as, unlike them, it doesn’t sell access to its model.

So underneath Synthesia’s SaaS offering is a video model, powered by Nvidia GPUs.

Last year, it was revealed that London-founded AI startup 11X was jumping ship to San Francisco, amid pressure from investors and a desire to be closer to talent.

But Voica said Synthesia remained committed to the UK as its headquarters, pointing out that its new CTO Peter Hill, a former Amazon executive, is relocating to the UK from the US.

Voica said:

“The UK, and Europe in general, the people are more passionate, they are a bit more loyal.

“They believe in these mission-driven companies. In the US, there is a lot of competition for talent. They hop around a lot whereas in Europe it is a bit more stable.”

He added “there are many countries right now saying they want to become AI superpowers, but I think the UK is probably the only one that has a real shot” citing the talent emanating from UK universities.

He also pointed out that Synthesia had become a globally renowned company from being located in the UK.