Neosapience Secures $21.5 Million Series B to Bring AI-Powered Virtual Actors to Content Creators Everywhere

SEOUL, Korea, Feb. 22, 2022 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- Neosapience, a startup that operates AI-powered virtual actor service Typecast, which uses AI to create synthetic voices and videos, today announced it has received $21.5 million in Series B funding. The funding round was led by BRV Capital Management, with participation from Stic Ventures and Quantum Ventures, as well as previous investors Company K Partners, Albatross Investment Capital, Daekyo Investment and TimeWorks Investment. Funds will be used for further product development and the company's expansion into the U.S.

Typecast is ideally suited for anyone planning to create video and audio content because it allows anyone to use AI-powered virtual actors, leveraging sophisticated audio and video synthesis technology in their content. By simply 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.

Unlike other companies in the burgeoning space, Typecast moves beyond lip-sync, dubbing and video synthesis technology. Its voice provides human-like emotions, speaking styles, prosody control, singing and more. It also creates mouth shapes and facial expressions according to the voice when the user selects video actors.

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 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.

"The promise of exhibiting human-level emotions via technology has proven to be extremely difficult to achieve to date. Neosapience, who continues to spearhead the voice and video synthesis space, has successfully constructed the commercial infrastructure that individual creators, as well as entertainment and media companies around the world, can easily access to revolutionize the way emotions are embedded into digital and virtual contents production," said Yeemin Chung, Managing Director at BRV Capital Management. "We are thoroughly impressed with Typecast's dedication towards tech sophistication as well as immediate user benefits. We are privileged to lead the Series B round and forge this partnership with world-class innovators."

There are many video platforms, and new content is created every second. Still, it's not easy to make the leap when it comes to content creation because shooting or editing videos is not as simple as typing something. That's why many people have been looking for a solution to share their stories in the form of video or audio content. Typecast quenches their thirst by providing a simple tool that lets users create news or explainer videos without having to record and edit in a studio.

Interestingly, among the most popular channels in Korea in 2021 on YouTube, the top channel in the shorts category was created exclusively with Typecast's dubbing.

Not only is the single content creator happy about this product, but professional production directors at major broadcasters, home shopping and OTT providers are using Typecast instead of hiring human actors. Major e-book platforms use Typecast to offer a variety of audiobooks created by AI voice actors. This increases production efficiency by reducing cost and time while maintaining audio quality.

"While we have grown so rapidly over the past year, we see an opportunity to push even further to become the undisputed global leader in AI-driven virtual humans and its applications in synthetic media and interactive content," said Taesu Kim, founder and CEO of Neosapience. "This latest round of funding will allow us to expand our reach and push the boundaries even further. It will not only allow content creators to create more content with less effort but also execute on our vision of AI-powered virtual actors being accessible to everyone."

To learn more about Neosapience and its Typecast service, please visit neosapience.com.

About Neosapience
Neosapience is a startup founded in 2017 by former Qualcomm engineers and KAIST graduates. Their goal is to make AI-powered virtual actors for everyone. The team has developed a core technology to synthesize realistic and emotional voices and faces from a given text script.

Neosapience's Typecast service is based on these technologies to help content creators to make audio and video without casting human actors. This will lead to a revolution in the media entertainment industry as content creation becomes cheaper and easier. Learn more at http://www.neosapience.com.

Media Contact

Amber Moore, Moore Communications and Consulting, +1 (503) 943-9381, [email protected]

SOURCE Neosapience