Gan.ai Founder and CEO Suvrat Bhooshan
struggle
Consumers are very accustomed to receiving personalized emails from businesses offering special deals, encouraging subscription renewals, or simply thanking them for their support. But what if the same method could be used to send a personalized video to a customer, addressed to them with a personal greeting from someone within the company, or a celebrity endorser or brand ambassador? The technology is powered by California startup Gan.ai, which today announced a $5.25 million seed funding round.
Founded in March 2021 by Subrat Bhushan, who previously worked on Facebook’s artificial intelligence (AI) research team, Gan.ai has worked with companies ranging from mobile phone giants such as Samsung to healthcare conglomerates such as Eyecare. We have already signed contracts with a series of good customers. partners and even sports teams. “Personalization and targeted outreach almost always improve conversion rates, but there has never been an easy, scalable way to do that with video,” explains Bhushan. “We have set out to solve this problem.”
The technology may be sophisticated, but the idea is very simple. For companies that want to reach their customers, he only needs to record one video with the message he wants to convey. Gan.ai’s technology can create a personalized version of that video for each customer the company wants to contact. It recreates the voice of the person making the video and adjusts the lip movements for each version so that what the customer receives feels completely human. For each video, the company can address each customer by name and adjust other variables depending on the purpose of the message.
Bhushan said the impact of personalized videos so far has been dramatic. Customers who receive the video are five times more likely to complete the video than those who receive the general message, he claims. Campaign conversion rates can be up to 10x higher. One Indian cricket team used the technology to send personalized videos from players to fans who commented on their Instagram feeds, generating tens of thousands of responses.
Mobile Premier League, an early adopter of Gan.ai’s tools, has certainly impressed. “We shoot videos with influencers and celebrities, and with Gan.ai they call your name and give you a personalized call to action,” said a senior manager at the company. He explains Tejnoor Grover. “Video completion rates increased by 5x, open rates increased by 3x, and click-through rates increased by 1.5x.”
Gan.ai believes its technology represents a major breakthrough in a rapidly growing field. According to Grand View Research, the global generative AI video market was worth about $470 million last year and is expected to grow at an annual rate of 20% from 2023 to 2030.
Competition is fierce, but Bhooshan said Gan.ai is one of the few companies that uses real videos to create videos. If you want your CEO to be the star of your video, the technology will make it happen. If you hired a celebrity influencer, that’s fine too. In contrast, rivals and high-profile companies such as Synthesia and HourOne create avatars that appear in front of their videos. These are virtual people, but they are often very compelling and influential.
Bhushan says Gan.ai’s approach is technically demanding, but rewarding when done right. “Matching the tone and texture of the voices on both sides so that they appear unedited, and similarly changing the lip movements to match the new voice while leaving the rest of the video intact, It’s a much more difficult problem,” he explains. “People notice changes quickly, so the bar for quality is much higher.”
The company’s monetization strategy is to offer two versions of its product. Large enterprise customers who want the highest quality production value will pay a premium, while the cheaper self-service option is aimed at small businesses using their webcams to create their first video themselves. The service also comes with analytics tools to help customers assess the impact of their campaigns.
With the new funding available, Gan.ai hopes to use the seed financing to expand its engineering team and invest in go-to-market activities to accelerate business expansion. The $5.25 million round was led by Surge, Sequoia Capital India and Southeast Asia, with participation from Emergent Ventures and a number of angel investors.
The company also has support from non-financial backers. TechCrunch Disrupt 2022 selected him as one of the 200 Future Technologies, and in 2023 Stanford University he is a member of the StartX cohort.
follow me twitter.
