Joshua Xu, HeyGen co-founder and CEO;
Hey Gene
Thanks to OpenAI’s viral Sora app, AI-generated video has gone mainstream. With this app, you can cast your friends, family, and deceased celebrities into impossible and fantastical videos. According to Grand View Research, the market size was 3.86 billion in 2024 and is expected to expand to 42.29 billion by 2033.
Last week, Forbes reported that Synthesia, an AI video company focused on helping large enterprises with training videos, raised $200 million, valuing the company at $4 billion. Now comes another commercial growth indicator.
Los Angeles-based Hagen said it has grown to $100 million in recurring revenue by approaching the business video market from a different angle, giving businesses the tools to create their own marketing videos.
Co-founder and CEO Joshua Xu was inspired to start HeyGen after being a camera-shy engineer who was terrified of recording his own video. He realized that AI could eliminate the entire recording process.
This recognition, combined with the rise of video as a key marketing tool for reaching customers, has allowed HeyGen to expand from a start with single-digit million revenue to nearly 200,000 paying customers and $100 million in recurring revenue last year.
HeyGen customers can upload their own photos or video clips and turn them into entire sales or marketing videos, such as personalized pitches to prospects or TikTok product tutorials.
“We have focused on one thing: building the highest quality, most realistic avatars available for video,” said Xu.
With the intention of building on its success and claiming even greater rights in the rapidly developing market, HeyGen is now working on the entire video production process. This is a painstaking process that typically involves a cutter, a professional editor, and an entire team. The startup recently released “Video Agent,” which promises to do many of the tasks that professional video editors do, including voiceover, visual selection, and even rudimentary script writing. Still, it’s an open question whether AI can replace the human creative flair needed for video editing.
Sarah Guo, founder, investor and director of Conviction, an AI-focused venture capital fund, said HeyGen satisfies a deep human desire to see the faces of other humans as they speak. Guo hosts a podcast called No Priors and said he was surprised by the demand for posting podcast recordings on YouTube.
“Everyone wants to convey their creativity and perspective, but few have access to professional production and are comfortable with being in front of the camera,” she said. “HeyGen is trying to be accessible to everyone.”
