Sequoia India-backed AI startup Gan.ai raises $5.25M in funding for its AI-powered video platform

The rise of ChatGPT has sparked a rapid surge in the mainstream adoption of generative artificial intelligence (AI) across industries. Since its launch late last year, many companies began to capitalize on its growing popularity and incorporate AI into their products and services.

The AI boom has also opened up new avenues for technology startups. Investors have been pouring billions of dollars into generative AI startups such as Anthropic, Inflection AI, and several others, creating lucrative opportunities in the industry. The latest startup to receive the funding windfall is Gan.ai, a generative AI startup that has built the world’s first personalized human video platform.

Today, Gan.ai announced it has raised $5.25M in seed funding to scale its operations. The round was led by Surge, Sequoia Capital India, and Southeast Asia’s rapid scale-up program with participation from Emergent Ventures and other angel investors.

For many years, brands have been able to personalize text, images, and audio in their marketing campaigns. Now with the onset of AI resources like Gan.ai, brands will for the first time, in just minutes be able to produce mass personalized videos for their marketing campaigns promising a more engaging experience for their users.

Founded in March 2021 by Suvrat Bhooshan, the California-based Gan.ai offers studio-quality video personalization software that enables brands simply to record a video once, add dynamic keywords to a script, and Gan.ai will generate millions of hyper-customized videos in one click. Businesses can also create personalized landing pages with Gan.ai and deliver videos via preferred communications platforms, enabling specific interactions with users and tailored call-to-actions.

Prior to founding Gan.ai, Suvrat previously worked at Facebook AI Research (FAIR) having completed his master’s degree in computer science from Stanford University. His deep-learning papers have been published and cited over 300 times. Today, the company has a team of 35 with a leadership team that includes Anupreet Singh as Chief Revenue Officer and Kushaagra Goyal as Chief Technology Officer.

Gan.ai’s platform also integrates with Shopify, Calendly, Stripe, Salesforce and Hubspot for businesses to create unique shopping and payment experiences also. Moreover, Gan.ai’s end-to-end solution also provides businesses with granular customer insights and video performance analytics.

“We’re empowering marketing teams around the world to generate a higher return on investment for video campaigns. Imagine a food delivery company being able to send a personalized video from a brand ambassador, addressing its customer by name and how they enjoyed items in their last order, or a clinic reminding a patient to book a follow-up appointment. This hyper-personalization leads to much higher conversion rates vs other static forms of communications,” Bhooshan said in a statement.

“With Gan.ai, businesses will be able to scale their video personalization process while seamlessly integrating it with existing workflows. We’re excited to grow our operations with the new funds, and expand our sales and engineering teams across US and India,” he said.

In just two years after its launch, Gan.ai boasts a global customer base that includes brands such as Samsung, Zomato, vivo and gaming platform Mobile Premier League. In the US, Gan.ai has been used by some of the biggest brands including the largest chain of optometry and ophthalmology clinics, EyeCare Partners.

“We record videos with influencers and celebrities, and now with Gan.ai, when they call out your name and tell you to take a personalized call-to-action the results are astounding. We saw a 5x increase in our Video Completion Rate, 3x increase in open rates, and 2.5x increase in our Click-Through-Rate,” said user Tejnoor Grover at gaming platform Mobile Premier League.

Gan.ai was one of the 200 technologies of the future at TechCrunch Disrupt 2022. The startup was recently inducted into Stanford University’s prestigious StartX cohort in 2023.