Neosapience, a Seoul, South Korea-based startup that operates AI-powered virtual actor service Typecast, raised $21.5M in Series B funding.
The round was led by BRV Capital Management, with participation from Stic Ventures, Quantum Ventures, Company K Partners, Albatross Investment Capital, Daekyo Investment and TimeWorks Investment.
The company intends to use the funds to further product development and expansion into the U.S.
Founded in 2017 and led by CEO Taesu Kim, Neosapience aims to make AI-powered virtual actors for everyone based on core technology that synthesizes realistic and emotional voices and faces from a given text script. Typecast is suited for anyone planning to create video and audio content because it allows anyone to use AI-powered virtual actors, leveraging audio and video synthesis technology in their content. By typing in a script, it is possible to create audio and video content as if an actual actor were recording and shooting in a studio. Professional actors and newscasters have recorded thousands of sounds and words, revealing their natural emotions and vocal styles. In addition, the company collected speech videos and then trained deep neural networks to synthesize their voices, mouth shapes and facial expressions accordingly to generate the most life-like virtual human imaginable.
Typecast first started as an AI voice actor service, providing 170 virtual voice actors in Korean and English. Since its launch in November 2019, revenue has increased by an average of 18% per month for over two years. The company recently added a video actor service to provide an AI virtual human video (see separate release for details) in addition to the natural, expressive voice it specializes in. Additionally, Spanish and Japanese will be available. Team members have also published several widely-cited papers and hold several patents for the company’s AI-powered voice and video technology. These advances are expected to drive Typecast’s growth worldwide.
FinSMEs
25/02/2022