Lightspeed-backed AI communications startup Rephrase.ai raises $10.6 mn in Series A

Lightspeed Ventures-backed Rephrase.ai, an AI (artificial intelligence) startup that improves communication through synthetic media, has raised $10.6 million as a part of its Series A funding.

The funding round was led by Red Ventures, a global VC (venture capital) that has invested in various content companies, Rephrase.ai said in a statement on September 15. Silver Lake, a global technology VC that has also invested in Red Ventures, also participated in the round. 8VC Ventures along with other investors also participated in the round, the company said, without disclosing the names of other investors.

The funding will help Rephrase.ai to strengthen its capabilities by integrating product experiences, the company said. Rephrase.ai will also hire across departments including engineering, AI, product, sales and marketing, the company said. It would also expand its presence in North America.

Founded in 2019 by IIT alumni Ashray Malhotra, Nisheeth Lahoti and

Shivam Mangla, Rephrase.ai offers a product that democratises video, by enabling video creation capabilities available to companies of all sizes across all industries. The company uses deep learning to create digital avatars of actual humans that can be used for synthetic video content with only text as input.

Synthetic video creation capabilities strengthen marketing, communications, and content teams to improve their synergies, the company said.

“Given how people consume information today, scalable solutions to deliver personalized video are needed now more than ever,” said Carlos Angrisano, President at Red Ventures.

“With the current mass customization of video content, our big bet is on the reinvention of the video production process, and that, as a business process technology, has incredible potential," Angrisano added.

Rephrase.ai claims to have worked with more than 50 global enterprises, including Castrol, Mondelez, and Xiaomi among others, to deliver video creation capabilities. The company said it also powered the tech capabilities for one of Mondelez’s advertisements featuring Hindi film industry star Shah Rukh Khan.