Hour One, a Tel Aviv, Israel- and NYC-based AI video generation company powered by virtual human characters, raised $20m in Series A funding.
The round was led by Insight Partners with participation from Galaxy Interactive, Remagine Ventures, Kindred Ventures, Semble Ventures, Cerca Partners, Digital-Horizon and Eynat Guez.
Hour One provides an AI platform that converts people into virtual human characters that can be activated with lifelike expressiveness, in any language, for a range of commercial and professional use cases. Following a short filming session in which a person’s likeness is captured, the AI technology generates a virtual twin that can then be deployed in a variety of roles, including a virtual receptionist, salesperson, HR representative or language teacher. The humans behind the virtual characters can earn a passive income for appearances across a range of professional and commercial content, pointing to an expansive vision of the future of work. Companies such as Berlitz, a provider of language and culture training, use Hour One to generate studio-grade video, featuring lifelike virtual instructors across thousands of videos. The company has also partnered with NBCUniversal, DreamWorks and Cameo to bring personalization at scale to its core intellectual property.
The company intends to use the funds to further enhance and streamline the process of becoming a virtual human on the platform, making it possible from any mobile device, with studio quality video creation and full automation.
This can all be done using Hour One’s recently launched Reals, a self-service platform, enabling businesses to create human-led video automatically, from just text, in a matter of minutes.
FinSMEs
25/04/2022