Captions

It’s been a big year for Captions, and it’s only July. Building on this momentum, we’re excited to announce our $60M Series C, led by Index Ventures. That brings our total capital raised to $100M, which we’ll be investing in AI video research right here in New York City. We built Captions to make it easy for anyone, anywhere to tell their story with a video — we believe that AI unlocks new possibilities to generate and edit talking videos, and that AI will change the future of video as we know it. Looking at the past year, there’s a lot to be proud of: we hit 10M+ global creators, launched a collection of world-first generative features, and our customers created over 3M videos each month — telling diverse stories, transcending language barriers, and even falling in love, as profiled in the New York Times. Our team also grew from 15 to 60 here in New York City. We’re thrilled to welcome back returning investors Kleiner Perkins, Andreessen Horowitz, and Sequoia Capital, and new investors Adobe Ventures, HubSpot Ventures, and Jared Leto to this round. We’re grateful for your support. Read more about our fundraise in Bloomberg News, covered by Rachel Metz. If you’re interested in joining a fast-moving team that’s defining the future of AI in video, check out our careers page: https://lnkd.in/gYQ-B8mm —we’d love to talk.

We have been impressed with Gaurav Misra, Dwight Churchill, and the Captions team since our partnership many years ago. Big congrats to the team on today's Series C fundraise announcement and on reaching an exciting milestone of 10M+ creators! We are excited to continue supporting Captions on their mission to democratize video creation and storytelling using AI.

At HubSpot, we know that short-form video is now the # 1 content format, delivering the highest ROI and helping businesses build stronger connections with their customers. Which is why we’re excited to announce HubSpot Ventures’ investment in Captions. Captions allows marketers and creators to easily tell their stories with video and reach customers faster with the help of AI. Congratulations to the awesome Captions team led by Gaurav Misra and Dwight Churchill! Learn more about how Captions helps equip the next generation of marketers to simplify and enhance the content creation process.

We've had an incredible year at Captions so far — and today I'm thrilled to share we've raised a $60M Series C. This milestone was made possible by some truly incredible work and momentum by our New York City team including: 🌎 Reaching 10M+ global creators on Captions 🎥 Launching a collection of world-first generative features, including AI Creator and AI Edit 📈 Seeing 3M+ videos generated by our customer each month Going forward, we plan to invest $100M into advancing generative video research here in New York. We believe that New York is emerging as the epicenter for AI research and look forward to building our world-class team here. (Give a 👹 if you're interested in joining us on this ride!) This round was led by Index Ventures, with participation from our existing investors Kleiner Perkins, Sequoia Capital, and Andreessen Horowitz. New investors include Adobe Ventures, HubSpot Ventures, and Jared Leto. We're grateful to each of our partners for their support in this journey, and to our global community of creators for giving us the opportunity to help amplify your ideas. Cheers to the next chapter. Check out our coverage in Bloomberg News by Rachel Metz: https://lnkd.in/eJ2rAhCZ

Storytelling is a core piece of the human experience, and video is one of the most compelling ways we bring stories to life. As AI seeps into our day-to-day tools, the next opportunity in video storytelling is cracking open. And while there’s no shortage of platforms for anyone to become a content creator or storyteller today, access to and understanding of the technology needed to produce the best-quality video have been expensive, time intensive, or required a steep learning curve. Captions is opening up creative storytelling for all. Its CEO Gaurav Misra first saw the potential in short-form video while at Snap, where he spent five years shaping a product that hundreds of millions of people use to tell stories daily. He and co-founder Dwight Churchill launched Captions in 2021 to reduce the barrier to entry for video creators. Today, after the company’s momentous year unveiling several new incredible AI-powered video editing tools like AI Edit and Lipdub, we’re thrilled to share that we’re leading Captions’ $60M Series C. As the team sets its sights on growing its team, further investing in research efforts, and continuing pioneering breakthroughs in video technology, we couldn’t be more excited to play a part in their story. As Index Partner Damir Becirovic sees it, while AI is moving fast, Captions has consistently set the pace of innovation in content creation: “In the past year, the company’s breakthroughs in video generation haven’t just had an impact on the company’s success, but the AI community at large, further cementing Captions as a market leader.” See Captions’ technology in action and learn more about why we’re excited about the team’s creative solution to the opportunity at hand. 📽️

Meet AI Twin, the easiest way to generate a personal avatar. Your AI Twin only requires one minute of input video and generates in a matter of seconds. Callie Costello's AI Twin was created using Lipdub 2.0, which supports 4K resolution and complex inputs like walking and dynamic head poses. Create your own AI Twin, coming next week on Captions.

We polled more than 20 of the sharpest AI product builders and investors asking them for the most counterintuitive and surprising things they’ve learned about building AI products. Here's what they had to say: https://lnkd.in/g8eMwiEh A huge thank-you to Elad Gil, Scott Belsky, Sarah Guo, Paul Adams, Claire Vo, Rahul Vohra, Cameron Adams, Johnny Ho, Gaurav Misra, Joel Kwartler, Dan Siroker and everyone else who contributed their advice, and Kyle Poyar for writing this epic guest post ❤️🔥

Meet AI Twin, the easiest way to generate a personal avatar. Your AI Twin only requires one minute of input video and generates in a matter of seconds. Callie Costello's AI Twin was created using Lipdub 2.0, which supports 4K resolution and complex inputs like walking and dynamic head poses. Create your own AI Twin, coming next week on Captions.

Video is the most powerful medium available for sharing your idea or story. I'm excited about a world where anyone can do that.

Thanks to Ivan Mehta for the great conversation about AI Edit for TechCrunch! At Captions we're excited about making video creation accessible to anyone who has a story to tell. Our launch today is just the beginning! https://lnkd.in/eF_TH8xG