Captions secures US$60M Series C funding by Index Ventures
Captions announces a US$60 million Series C funding round, led by Index Ventures, to further AI video technology research in New York City.
Captions, a leader in generative video creation and editing, has successfully raised US$60 million in a Series C funding round led by Index Ventures. This round brings the company's total funding to $100 million, valuing it at $500 million. Existing investors Kleiner Perkins, Andreessen Horowitz, and Sequoia Capital returned, while new participants included Adobe Ventures, HubSpot Ventures, and Jared Leto.
Captions is a company that provides an AI-powered video captioning platform designed to streamline the process of creating and adding captions to videos. This tool assists marketers by simplifying video content creation, making it easier to generate accurate captions and enhance storytelling with appropriate music and effects. The platform is especially useful for improving engagement and accessibility in social media and advertising campaigns.
The significant funding will be utilized to bolster Captions' machine learning team and enhance in-house research and technical infrastructure. By focusing on these areas, Captions aims to drive breakthroughs in video technology from its New York City base.
Patrecia Meliana
“We’re excited to share our plan to invest $100M into advancing generative video research from New York City,” stated Gaurav Misra, co-founder and CEO of Captions. He emphasized New York's emerging status as an AI hub and expressed gratitude for the robust support from investors and the community.
Captions has introduced several proprietary technologies in recent months, such as AI Creator, the first 3D avatar for content creation, AI Edit, a one-tap video editing tool, and Lipdub, a model that generates natural lip movements and body language. These innovations have significantly contributed to the company's growth, leading to over 10 million mobile downloads in the past year.
“Storytelling is humanity’s most powerful trait. 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,” said Damir Becirovic, Partner at Index Ventures.
“We’re thrilled to continue supporting Captions, especially as we’ve witnessed the company achieve one major milestone after another in such a short period of time. Captions’ ability to ship widely-adopted, innovative products quickly has become a defining characteristic for their team and we look forward to continuing to partner with them,” added Everett Randle, Partner at Kleiner Perkins.
With the new funding, Captions plans to continue offering high-quality video creation tools, empowering users to produce professional content effortlessly.
Furthermore, Captions has integrated advanced AI capabilities similar to those found in tools like Azure AI Video Indexer, which helps users extract rich insights from their videos. This integration enables content creators to search for specific spoken words, faces, and emotions within their videos, enhancing the overall user experience and engagement. With these capabilities, Captions is well-positioned to remain at the forefront of AI-driven video technology innovation.
For those exploring alternatives to Captions, consider Lumen5, which uses AI to turn text content into engaging videos and includes various templates and media integrations. Another option is WeVideo, which offers cloud-based video editing with collaborative features and a range of export options. Biteable is also a viable alternative, providing a user-friendly interface and a vast library of templates and stock footage, making it easy to create professional-quality videos. These tools can help enhance your video content creation and marketing efforts.
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