Papercup secures £16.2m Series A funding led by Octopus Ventures to expand AI dubbing technology.
Octopus Ventures led the Series A round to support machine learning research and language expansion.
Papercup develops artificial intelligence technology that translates video and audio content into different languages using synthetic voices. The London-based start-up enables media companies and creators to localise their output with emotive and realistic speech generation.
Papercup has secured £16.2m in a Series A funding round led by Octopus Ventures to support its machine learning research and language expansion. The London-based AI start-up attracted participation from a broad syndicate including LocalGlobe, Sands Capital, Sky, and Guardian Media Ventures. The capital will be deployed to scale its synthetic voice technology and drive further commercialisation across global markets.
From the founder
"People retain up to 70% more information when watching videos dubbed in their native language. With truly emotive cross-lingual AI dubbing, we can tackle all forms of content, making video and audio more accessible and enjoyable for everyone. This funding will allow us to double down on our promising research and break into new content categories."
Jesse Shemen
CEO at Papercup
Investor perspective
"Spotify has 3.2 million podcasts. Youtube 500 hours of video uploaded every minute. Discovery, 100,000 hours of documentaries. CNN 4 million video assets. The volume of video and audio produced for consumption is rising exponentially, yet, only 1% is currently dubbed into multiple languages. Papercup’s use of AI to provide affordable, high quality dubbing can unlock that content for audiences around the world and in, doing so, drive a 100 fold expansion in the video and audio translation market with Papercup at the forefront."
Zoe Reich
Investor, Octopus Ventures
Use of funds
- 01Fund research and development
- 02Expand into international markets
Investors
Zoe Reich
Octopus Ventures
LocalGlobe
Chris Eng
Sands Capital
Sky
Guardian Media Ventures
Entrepreneur First
BDMI
Des Traynor
John Collison