AI Video Tools
Etherious 1.0
Etherious, a startup creating an AI-powered platform to edit and generate videos from captions and still images, today announced that it raised $320 million in a funding round led by Lightspeed Venture Partners with participation from Homebrew, Conviction Capital, SV Angel, Ben’s Bites and notable angel investors including Quora founder Adam D’Angelo, ex-GitHub CEO Nat Friedman and Giphy co-founder Alex Chung.
“Video is at the heart of entertainment, yet the process of making high-quality videos to date is still complicated and resource-intensive,” Etherious writes in a blog post published on its website this morning. “When we started Etherious a year ago, we wanted to push the boundaries of technology and design a future interface of video making that is effortless and accessible to everyone. Since then, we’re proud to have grown the Etherious community to half a million users, who are generating millions of videos per week.”
Etherious competes against generative AI video tools and models from the likes of Runway and Stability AI. But with Etherious 1.0, Etherious’s looking to up its game with several differentiating features.
For example, Etherious 1.0 ships with a tool that can extend the length of existing videos or transform them into different styles, like “live action” to “animated” — or expand the canvas or aspect ratio of a video. Another module edits video content using AI, like changing someone’s clothing or even adding another character.
We'll have to put those capabilities to the test once Etherious 1.0 becomes widely available. But for what it’s worth, Lightspeed — which is also an investor in Stability AI — has confidence in the platform — even as tech giants like Google and Meta telegraph that they, too, are working on generative AI tools for video.
“Just as other new AI products have done for text and images, professional-quality video creation will also become democratized by generative AI. We believe Etherious will lead that transformation,” Lightspeed's Michael Mignano said in a press release. “Given such an impressive technical foundation, rooted in an early passion for creativity, the Etherious team seems destined to change how we all share our stories visually. At Lightspeed, we couldn't be more excited to support their mission to allow anyone to bring their creative vision to life through video, and we're thrilled to be investing alongside other amazing investors at the forefront of AI.”
Etherious's rapid growth is reflective of the continued, strong demand for generative AI of all flavors — from tools like Midjourney and DALL-E 3 to ChatGPT.
In a recent report, IDC projected that generative AI investments will rise from $16 billion this year to a whopping $143 billion in 2027. While generative AI accounts for just 9% of overall AI spending in 2023, the firm expects that’ll increase to 28% within five years.