Synthesia hits $4B valuation, allows employees to donate money

British company Synthesia, whose AI platform helps companies create educational videos, has raised $200 million in Series E funding that brings its value to $4 billion – up from $2.1 billion a year ago.

Unlike other AI startups that are still far from turning a profit, Synthesia has found a profitable business in revolutionizing corporate training thanks to AI-generated avatars. With business clients including Bosch, Merck, and SAP, the London-based company has crossed over $100 million in annual recurring revenue (ARR) in April 2025.

This major event explains why Synthesia’s supporters are dwindling. The Series E that doubled its funding was led by existing investor GV (Google Ventures), with participation from several other backers – incl. Series B led by Kleiner Perkins, Series C leads Accel, Series D leads New Enterprise Associates (NEA), NVIDIA’s venture capital arm NVenturesAir Street Capital, and PSP Growth.

Apart from ongoing support, this cycle will bring both incoming and outgoing. On the one hand, Matt Miller’s VC firm Evantic and private company of VC Hedosophia they are entering the cap table as new entrants. On the other hand, Synthesia will facilitate the secondary sale of employees in cooperation with Nasdaq, TechCrunch has learned.

To be clear, Synthesia is not going public at this time – Nasdaq is not acting as a public exchange for this project, but as a private market operator that will help early stage members convert their shares into cash. The sale of these shares usually takes place outside the system, but often at prices below or above the company’s value, and sometimes they are resented by other owners. With this option, all sales will be tied to the same $4 billion valuation as Synthesia’s Series E, where the company retains a controlling interest.

“This second one is very important to our employees,” Synthesia CFO Daniel Kim told TechCrunch. “It gives employees the opportunity to earn money and share in the profits they’ve helped create, while continuing to operate as an entrepreneurial company focused on long-term growth.”

For Synthesia, long-term growth involves continuity explanatory videos and embrace behavior of AI agents. According to a press release, the company is developing AI assistants that will allow their customers’ employees to “interact with the company’s knowledge in a familiar, human-like way by asking questions, viewing events using role models, and receiving interactive explanations.”

The company said the early pilots received positive feedback from customers, who reported greater responsiveness and faster data transfer compared to older models. This positive response explains why Synthesia is now planning to make agents a “focus” to install, along with other improvements to the existing platform.

Although it did not disclose financial forecasts, the company hopes that its platform will provide a welcome solution to businesses’ challenges in retaining their well-trained workforce despite rapid change. “We are witnessing a rare evolution of two major changes: technological change and AI assistants becoming more capable, and a market change where improving skills and sharing internal knowledge has become more important,” Synthesia co-founder and CEO Victor Riparbelli said in a statement.

Seeing the boards cares a lot about the staff because AI wasn’t on anyone’s bingo card, except maybe Riparbelli. Together with his cofounder, Synthesia COO Steffen Tjerrild, Riparbelli took steps to sell the second so that his employees could participate in the success of the unicorn company. Founded in 2017, Synthesia now has over 500 members, a 20,000-square-foot HQ in Londonwith additional offices in Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Munich, New York City, and Zurich.

Although unusual for a British startup, this second sale is not the first and probably not the last, Synthesia’s head of business and policy, Alexandru Voica told TechCrunch. “I think the longer the (UK-based) private sector goes private, the more this kind of structured, cross-border stuff will become, so I wouldn’t be surprised to see others doing it, whether it’s Nasdaq or others,” he predicted.