We recently wrote, with tongue firmly in cheek, about how Ashton Kutcher is ruining the film industry by talking up AI video. Who needs writers and actors if you can just GenAI everything?
Truth is Kutcher doesn’t much matter here. Unless you’re a fan. Is anyone a fan? It was all just a fun way to make the point that AI video is the next battleground among the big AI players. Not to mention among top venture capitalists.
And that is increasingly appearing to be the case.
In the same article that poked fun at Kutcher (he isn’t taking our calls), we also shared that AI video company Pika had raised $80 million at a valuation that may have been as high as $700 million. Pika describes itself as an “idea to video” platform.
Fast forward about two weeks and here comes Hey Gen, yet another AI video platform that takes an idea and executes a video sans camera, cast, or crew. LA-based Hey Gen, founded in 2020, has just raised a $60 million Series A at a $500 million post-money valuation. The round brings Hey Gen’s fundraising to date to $74 million.
The round also features another A-list venture capital firm. Benchmark led the round. Also participating were Thrive Capital, BOND, Conviction, and Bond Capital, among others. Benchmark’s Victor Lazarte has joined the board of directors as part of the deal.
Pika’s round was backed by names like Lightspeed, Greycroft, and the actor Jared Leto.
What’s a Smule?
There are a few interesting things about Hey Gen. Its founders Joshua Xu is ex-Snap and Wayne Liang is ex-Smule (it’s a karaoke app). The leadership team also includes Asana, Hubspot, Match, and Meta alumni.
Also interesting is that the company is focused on helping businesses, including small ones. HeyGen says it has 40,000 users and $35 million in ARR. In a YouTube video announcing the round, Co-founder Xu says the 40,000 customers range from “small business owners to international non-profits to Fortune 500 companies.”
In the same video, Xu describes Hey Gen’s mission as “helping businesses grow by making visual storytelling accessible to all.”
The company’s pricing follows the SaaS playbook of a cheap (in this case free) but limited entry point with pricing tiers that go up based on features or capacity. The most expensive tier for SMBs is $120/month. Hey Gen gives enterprises the “just call me” treatment.
Given its B2B focus, it’s no surprise that Hey Gen is riding on the democratization narrative.
In announcing the new round, Hey Gen says its purpose is to “accelerate our mission to make storytelling accessible to all.”
Here is how Hey Gen describes its AI video service.
“Businesses want to engage their audiences with video but are held back by the cost and complexity of video production. Traditional methods can take weeks or months to script, cast, scout, produce, post-produce, localize, and re-shoot videos. Costs average about $1,000 per finished minute of video, with high production-value videos costing significantly more. Companies struggle to scale traditional methods of video production.”
