Synthesia hits $4B valuation, lets employees cash out

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

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

This milestone explains why Synthesia’s backers are literally doubling down. The Series E that nearly doubled its valuation 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), NVIDIA’s venture capital arm NVentures, Air Street Capital and PSP Growth.

In addition to continued support, this round will bring in both new and exiting investors. On the one hand, Matt Miller’s VC firm Evantic and the secretive VC firm Hedosophia join the cap table as newcomers. On the other hand, Synthesia will facilitate a secondary sale for employees in partnership with Nasdaq, TechCrunch has learned.

To be clear: Synthesia is not yet going public. Nasdaq is not acting as a public exchange in this operation, but as a private market facilitator that will help early team members convert their shares into cash. These stock sales by employees often occur outside this framework, but usually at prices below or above the company’s official valuation, and are sometimes disapproved by other shareholders. With this process, all sales will be pegged at the same $4 billion valuation as Synthesia’s Series E, while the company retains an element of control.

“This secondary part 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 means 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 customers’ employees to “interact with business knowledge in a more intuitive, human-like way by asking questions, exploring scenarios through role-playing games and receiving customized explanations.”

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

Although the company has not disclosed revenue forecasts, the company hopes its platform will provide a welcome answer to companies’ struggles to keep their workforces adequately trained despite rapid change. “We are seeing a rare convergence of two major shifts: a technology shift where AI agents are becoming increasingly capable, and a market shift where upskilling and sharing internal knowledge have become board-level priorities,” said Victor Riparbelli, co-founder and CEO of Synthesia, in a statement.

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

While unusual for a British startup, this coordinated secondary sale is not the first and probably not the last, Synthesia’s head of corporate affairs and policy, Alexandru Voica, told TechCrunch. “My guess is that if [U.K.-based] Private companies are staying private longer, this kind of structured, cross-border employee liquidity may become more common, so I wouldn’t be surprised to see others do this, both at Nasdaq and others,” he predicted.