Synthesia

Synthesia is a British artificial intelligence company founded in 2017 by Lourdes Agapito, Matthias Niessner, Victor Riparbelli, and Steffen Tjerrild. It develops software that creates AI-generated video content. The company is based in London and serves customers across the world. As of 2025, Synthesia has more than 60,000 customers, including over 60% of Fortune 100 companies. It employs around 550 people.
 

Synthesia’s platform allows users to make videos from text using AI avatars, voiceovers, and translation tools. It offers more than 230 AI avatars, personal avatars, voice cloning, lip-sync dubbing, 140+ languages, and an AI video assistant that converts files such as decks, PDFs, and webpages into video. The system also includes video creation, localisation, collaboration features, publishing tools, analytics, interactivity, brand kits, SCORM export, and enterprise-level security. It is used for training, marketing, product demos, sales enablement, learning, onboarding, and internal communication.
 

The technology works by learning speech, facial movements, and phoneme patterns from approved recordings. Users can choose existing avatars or create a digital version of themselves. The platform has strict rules to prevent misuse. It bans non-consensual cloning and political impersonation, and includes a screening and moderation process to avoid deepfake-related risks.
 

Synthesia has raised more than $330 million across several funding rounds. It reached a $1 billion valuation in 2023 and a $2.1 billion valuation in 2025 after raising $180 million led by NEA. Investors include Accel, NVentures (Nvidia), GV, Kleiner Perkins, FirstMark, World Innovation Lab, and Adobe, which also created a strategic partnership in 2025.
 

The company has collaborated with global brands in advertising and training. Notable early campaigns include Lay’s “Messi Messages”. Synthesia continues to expand across North America, Europe, Japan, and Australia, focusing on product development, AI research, and responsible use. Its offices operate in a hybrid model with locations in London, Copenhagen, New York, Amsterdam, Zurich, and Munich.

Synthesia was founded in 2017 by a team of AI researchers and entrepreneurs, including Lourdes Agapito of UCL, Matthias Niessner, Victor Riparbelli and Steffen Tjerrild. The founding ambition was to enable users to create video content without relying on cameras, microphones or studios.
 

In its early years (2017–2018), the company built its deep-learning architecture, modelling speech, facial movements and phoneme patterns to generate realistic video avatars. 


In 2018, it publicly demonstrated the technology via the BBC programme Click, showing newsreader Matthew Amroliwala delivering segments in Spanish, Mandarin and Hindi, although he spoke only English. 
 

From 2019 to 2020, the company began raising seed funding (such as US$3.1 million in 2019) and securing early customers, including large organisations such as Amazon, Tiffany & Co. and IHG Hotels & Resorts. The company also started to work on commercialising its platform for enterprise use.
 

In 2021–2022, Synthesia raised further capital: a Series A of US$12.5 million in April 2021, and a Series B of US$50 million in December 2021, led by Kleiner Perkins and GV. Meanwhile, the firm expanded its services into enterprise video creation, avatars, multi-language support, and corporate video workflows. For example, in 2021 it collaborated with Lay’s on the “Messi Messages” campaign featuring footballer Lionel Messi, enabling personalised AI videos. 
 

By mid-2023 (June), Synthesia achieved “unicorn” status, raising US$90 million in a Series C led by Accel and NVentures (Nvidia’s venture arm) and reaching a valuation of US$1 billion. The company’s customer base had grown significantly, including a large portion of Fortune 100 companies.
 

Between 2023 and 2024, the company responded to concerns about the misuse of AI-generated avatars and synthetic media. It enhanced its moderation and screening processes, introduced stricter controls on new users, and emphasised its ethics policy and consent requirements for likeness use.

In January 2024 it introduced its AI video assistant to convert text and documents into video, and in April 2024 it reported over 55,000 customers globally. 
 

In January 2025 Synthesia announced a Series D funding round of US$180 million, led by NEA with participation from existing and new investors, including World Innovation Lab (WiL), Atlassian Ventures and PSP Growth. This brought the company’s total funding to over US$330 million and its valuation to approximately US$2.1 billion. At the same time, the company appointed Peter Hill as Chief Technology Officer, bringing his experience from Amazon and Wildfire Studios. 
 

Today, Synthesia serves more than 60,000 customers worldwide, including over 60 % of Fortune 100 companies; it offers a broad enterprise-grade AI video platform, supports 140+ languages, 230+ avatars, personal avatars, voice cloning, lip-sync dubbing and full video workflows from creation to publishing. The company continues to expand globally in North America, Europe, Japan and Australia, while emphasising ethics, security, compliance and scale.

Synthesia’s mission is to make video creation simple, accessible, and workable for everyone. The company aims to remove the need for cameras, studios, or specialised skills by using artificial intelligence to turn text into video. Its goal is to help organisations communicate, train, and share information at scale with clear and consistent content. Synthesia focuses on building tools that support global teams, multi-language communication, and secure video workflows. A key part of its mission is the responsible use of AI, ensuring that all avatars and voice models are created with consent and that strict safety checks prevent misuse.

Synthesia’s vision is to support a world where video becomes the main way people and organisations share knowledge. The company aims to create technology that allows anyone to produce high-quality video as easily as writing a document. It plans to expand access to global communication by offering many languages, avatars, and tools for localisation. Synthesia also aims to develop safe AI systems that protect identities and encourage ethical use. Its long-term vision includes improving enterprise workflows, supporting remote and distributed teams, and building platforms that help businesses create training, marketing, and internal communication content without limits.

Synthesia has gained wide recognition in the AI and media industry. Its technology has been used in major global campaigns, including the Lay’s “Messi Messages” project, which won a Cannes Lion Award. The company has been featured by organisations such as the BBC and Reuters for early demonstrations of multilingual AI presenters. It has reached unicorn status after significant funding rounds from major investors, including Accel, NVentures, NEA and GV. Synthesia is also recognised for its focus on AI safety, with 10% of its team dedicated to ethics and responsible use. Its platform is widely used by Fortune 100 companies.

Synthesia provides a complete AI video creation platform that allows individuals and organisations to make videos using text, documents, and digital content. Its main product is the AI video generator, which removes the need for cameras, microphones, actors, or editing software. Users type a script or upload material, and the system produces a ready video with an avatar, voiceover and scenes.
 

One of Synthesia’s core products is its library of more than 230 AI avatars. These include presenters of different ages, styles and languages. The platform also allows users to create personal avatars, which are digital versions of themselves made through a secure onboarding process. Personal avatars can speak more than 30 languages and can be paired with the user’s own voice through the voice cloning tool. Synthesia also provides customisable avatars that can be generated with different clothing or environments using its Veo 3.1 asset tool.
 

Synthesia includes AI voices in more than 140 languages, offering a wide choice of accents, tones and voice styles. Users can also upload their own voiceovers or use AI Dubbing, which recreates the speaker’s natural voice and lip movements in another language. The 1-Click Translation feature allows a full video to be translated into more than 80 languages instantly. The Multilingual Video Player detects the viewer’s browser language and plays the correct version automatically.
 

The platform provides tools for video creation and editing. The AI Screen Recorder captures a user’s screen and converts the recording into a clean, structured video by transcribing speech, removing pauses and fixing mistakes. The AI Video Assistant converts decks, PDFs, and websites into fully narrated videos. Synthesia also includes templates, branded elements, background music, closed captions, and support for importing PowerPoint slides.
 

For enterprise users, Synthesia offers collaboration and management tools. Brand Kits apply company colours, fonts and logos automatically. Live Collaboration lets multiple team members edit and comment on videos. Organisation workspaces help teams manage assets and control access rights. Version Control ensures all distributed videos update automatically when changes are made.

Businesses can publish videos through public video pages, password-protected pages, or SSO pages for internal use. The platform also supports video embeds, auto-update features, and SCORM export, which allows integration with learning management systems. Analytics track views, watch time, engagement and click performance, helping organisations measure content impact.

Synthesia also provides tools for viewer engagement. The Interactivity feature allows creators to add quizzes, call-to-action buttons, and branching scenarios, making training and learning content more effective. The system can personalise videos at scale by generating many versions for different audiences through the bulk personalisation feature.

Synthesia’s services support several use cases, including training, learning and development, sales enablement, marketing videos, product demonstrations, onboarding, internal communications, IT and cybersecurity instruction, and knowledge management. For enterprise clients, Synthesia offers onboarding support, dedicated customer success managers, compliance features such as SOC 2 and GDPR alignment, and moderation tools to prevent misuse of avatars and AI-generated content.