Synthesia, the UK-based startup behind AI-generated video avatars for businesses, has secured a strategic investment from Adobe after crossing $100 million in annual recurring revenue. The funding—through Adobe Ventures—underscores Adobe’s growing interest in enterprise AI video tools, as it looks to expand beyond its traditional creative suite.
Key Points:
- Adobe Ventures takes undisclosed stake in UK-based Synthesia
- Startup now serves 70% of the Fortune 100 with AI video avatars
- $100M ARR milestone positions Synthesia among top AI-native video startups
Synthesia didn’t disclose the size of Adobe’s investment, but CEO and co-founder Victor Riparbelli framed it as a “validation” of the company’s vision to become the leading AI video platform for enterprise. “We share a vision: democratizing high-quality content creation and making enterprise communication faster and more effective,” Riparbelli said.
The eight-year-old startup offers a platform that lets companies create lifelike videos using AI avatars—either prebuilt or custom-recorded from real people. It’s become a staple across corporate training, communications, and marketing use cases, now used by over 60,000 companies, including more than 70% of the Fortune 100. Synthesia says thousands of AI videos are generated daily on its platform.
The Adobe partnership follows Synthesia’s $180 million Series D round in January, which doubled its valuation to $2.1 billion and brought total capital raised to more than $330 million. At the time, Synthesia emphasized a product-first strategy focused on real-world utility, touting strong unit economics and measured growth rather than hype.
Despite its revenue growth, the company remains unprofitable—reporting a £25.2 million pre-tax loss in 2023 on revenues of £25.7 million—but says the path to profitability is clear. Riparbelli emphasized that the company has never chased growth at all costs and still had capital on hand when it opted to raise again.
Synthesia faces growing pressure from fast-rising rival HeyGen. While Synthesia boasts the higher valuation at $2.1 billion, HeyGen has demonstrated remarkable growth, securing $60 million in Series A funding last June at a $500 million valuation—reportedly growing from $1 million to over $35 million in annual recurring revenue in just over a year. Unlike Synthesia, HeyGen claims to have been profitable since Q2 2023.
Synthesia’s enterprise push has also included a wave of new products—like its AI Video Assistant, multilingual dubbing tools, and personalized avatars—and strategic hires, including a new CTO from Amazon. The company says it’s now building “Synthesia 2.0,” an end-to-end platform to help businesses produce scalable, secure, and multilingual video communications.
With Adobe on board and ARR in nine-figure territory, Synthesia is positioning itself as not just a clever AI demo—but as a durable business ready for the next chapter.