Synthetic media production platform, Rephrase.ai has raised $1.5 million in seed funding, led by LightSpeed Ventures and AV8 Ventures. The venture claims that the Rephrase.ai engine can generate millions of personalized videos without the production cost and effort of doing it manually in a studio.

Rephrase.ai intends to use the capital to scale its AI-powered video personalization platform, strengthen its commercial presence in North America, and expand its engineering and research teams based out of Bengaluru, India.

The Software-as-a-Service startup claims, it makes the creation of personalized videos as simple as writing a text email. Its generative AI platform automates the video shoot process and sets pathways for the future of video making.

The core principle behind the AI video platform is facial-reenactment technology that predicts lip movements, facial expressions, and head movements.

The company is already seeing demand for personalised videos from digital marketing agencies and B2B SaaS enterprises for the creation of sales and marketing video content across multiple industries including automotive, eCommerce, entertainment, financial services, and real estate.

Synthetic media is an emerging industry. Not only does it solve the pain point of reduced face-to-face interactions and limited opportunities for production shoots, but it addresses a larger societal trend: people prefer to watch content rather than read it.

The platform enables brands to address every customer individually with video content that builds trust and loyalty at scale. This level of personalization is impossible with traditional video production methods believes Ashray Malhotra, CEO of Rephrase.ai.

“Our goal at Rephrase.ai is to reimagine how we communicate to better match our visual culture. Now, enterprises can create high-quality video content for targeted sales and marketing initiatives while saving time and money. This technology will change the way we think about video production, both for business communication today and filmmaking in the future.” Ashray said.

“Personalization is a huge lever to unlock ROI especially in sales & marketing where a white-glove personalized experience really makes a difference in engagement and outcomes, said Hemant Mohapatra, Partner at Lightspeed India Partners.

“We are already seeing companies run video-based marketing campaigns that see click-through rates of 4x over other personalized emails, but these videos are recorded individually, are expensive and unscalable. Rephrase.ai’s platform allows companies to create millions of personalized videos using real models with just text as input," he continued.

Founded by three IIT graduates - Ashray Malhotra, Shivam Mangla, and Nisheeth Lahoti in 2018, Rephrase.ai was among the 10 startups that were part of the first-ever batch of TechStars India Accelerator programme (in 2019).

Rephrase.ai’s growth comes at a time where many industries are looking for automated and scalable video solutions to enhance business functions, especially sales and marketing.

First Published:Sept 25, 2020 3:24 PM IST