Synthesia hits $4B valuation, lets employees cash out

British startup Synthesia, whose artificial intelligence platform helps companies create interactive training videos, has raised a $200 million Series E funding round that takes its valuation to $4 billion — up from $2.1 billion just a year ago.

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

This achievement explains why the Synthesia project has doubled its backers. The Series E, which nearly doubled in value, was led by existing investor GV (Google Ventures), with participation from several other previous backers – including Series B leader Kleiner Perkins, Series C leader Accel, Series D leader New Enterprise Associates (NEA), the venture capital arm of NVIDIA NVentures, Air Street Capital, and PSP Growth.

Aside from the continued support, this round will attract new and departing investors. On the one hand, Matt Miller’s VC firm Evantic Secret venture capital firm Hedosophia They join the cap table as new entrants. Synthesia, on the other hand, will facilitate the secondary sale to employees in partnership with Nasdaq, TechCrunch has learned.

To be clear, Synthesia has not gone public yet — Nasdaq is not acting as a public exchange in the process, but as a facilitator of private markets that will help early team members convert their shares into cash. Employee stock sales often take place outside this framework, but usually at prices below or above the company’s official valuation, and sometimes frowned upon by other shareholders. Through this process, all sales will be tied to the same $4 billion valuation as Synthesia’s Series E, while the company retains an element of control.

“This secondary phase is primarily about our employees,” Synthesia CFO Daniel Kim told TechCrunch. “It gives employees a meaningful opportunity to access liquidity and share in the value they have helped create, while we continue to operate as a privately held company focused on long-term growth.”

For Synthesia, this long-term growth includes moving beyond expressive videos and embracing the trend of AI agents. According to a press release, the company is developing AI agents that will allow its clients’ employees to “interact with company knowledge in a more intuitive and human-like way by asking questions, exploring scenarios through role-playing, and receiving personalized explanations.”

The company said the first pilots received positive feedback from customers, who reported higher engagement and faster knowledge transfer compared to traditional formats. This positive response explains why Synthesia now plans to make dealerships a “core strategic focus” to invest in, alongside making further product improvements to its existing platform.

Although it has not revealed revenue projections, the company hopes its platform will provide a welcome answer to companies’ struggles in keeping their workforces appropriately trained despite rapid changes. “We see a rare convergence of two major shifts: a technology shift where AI agents are becoming more capable, and a market shift where upskilling and sharing internal knowledge are board-level priorities,” Victor Riparbelli, co-founder and CEO of Synthesia, said in a statement.

Seeing that boards care more about employees as a result of AI hasn’t been on anyone’s bingo card, except perhaps Riparabili. Together with his co-founder, Synthesia COO Steffen Tjerrild, Riparbelli took the initiative to hold a secondary sale so that employees could share in the unicorn’s success. Founded in 2017, Synthesia now has over 500 team members 20,000 square foot headquarters in Londonand additional offices in Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Munich, New York City and Zurich.

Although unusual for a British startup, this coordinated secondary sale is not the first and likely won’t be the last, Alexandru Vojka, head of corporate affairs and policy at Synthesia, told TechCrunch. “My guess is that [U.K.-based] He predicted that private companies will remain private for longer, and this type of structured cross-border employee liquidity may become increasingly common, so I would not be surprised to see others do it, whether with Nasdaq or others.