Haiper Unveils $13.8M Seed Funding for Revolutionary Video-generative AI Platform
London-based Haiper, a pioneer in video-generative AI, has officially emerged from stealth mode with an impressive $13.8 million seed funding round led by Octopus Ventures. Founded in late 2021 by Dr Yishu Miao and Dr Ziyu Wang, both distinguished with PhDs in Machine Learning from Oxford University and prior experience at DeepMind, Haiper has now secured a total funding of $19.2 million. The company plans to raise a Series A round in 2024.
Haiper's core innovation lies in its development of an all-in-one visual foundation model, designed to cater to publishers, studios, and individuals. This groundbreaking model allows users, irrespective of technical expertise, to effortlessly generate high-quality video content. In the coming months, Haiper intends to roll out a series of large trained models, inviting users to engage in experimentation and feedback sessions, thereby enhancing the capabilities of its proprietary visual foundation model.
For video-generative AI to progress to the next level, the scalability of models and underlying data is paramount. Haiper acknowledges the complexity of video frames, each containing a myriad of visual details such as light, motion, texture, and object interactions. By developing generative AI with the capacity to intuitively grasp and replicate the emotional and physical facets of reality, Haiper aims to create visually stunning and lifelike content.
The dedicated team at Haiper is strategically training its perceptual foundation model with the goal of achieving Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) — an AI capable of comprehending and reflecting human-like understanding of the world. The company's distributed data processing and model training infrastructure are designed for scalability, allowing the perceptual foundation model to extend beyond content creation.
As Haiper scales, the potential applications of its technology broaden, reaching beyond the realm of video content creation. An AI with the ability to comprehend, interpret, and generate intricate video content could find applications in diverse industries, from robotics to transportation.
Dr Yishu Miao, co-founder and CEO of Haiper, envisions the ultimate goal: "Our end goal is to build an AGI with full perceptual abilities, which has boundless potential to assist with creativity. Our visual foundation model will be a leap forward in AI’s ability to deeply understand the physics of the world and replicate the essence of reality in the videos it generates. Such advancements lay the groundwork for AI that can understand, embrace, and enhance human storytelling."
Rebecca Hunt, Partner at Octopus Ventures, expresses confidence in Haiper's trajectory: "At Octopus, we look to back exceptionally talented founders who have a unique insight into a market and a strong technical edge. Only resilient, experienced teams can build cutting-edge products and solutions, and with Haiper, this is no different. Haiper's deeply technical foundations have enabled it to innovate and make breakthroughs at a pace we haven’t seen in the AI Video space; it is sure to become one of Europe’s big AI players.
