Argil Raises $5.2 Million for AI-Powered Video-Generation Tool

Argil has closed a seed round supporting its artificial intelligence (AI)-powered platform that helps businesses, educators and creators produce videos.

The company raised 4.9 million euros (about $5.2 million) in pre-seed and seed funding, EQT Ventures, which led the seed round, said in a Wednesday (Nov. 27) post on LinkedIn.

Argil’s platform uses generative AI to create life-like avatars and produce videos in minutes, according to the post.

“Argil is perfectly positioned to benefit from two megatrends — AI and the creator economy,” EQT Ventures Partner Ted Persson said in the post. “Synthetic media has become one of the fastest-adopted technologies, and we’re hugely impressed by the team’s experience and ability to pack so much technology into such a sleek platform.”

The platform generates AI videos for social media featuring an individual or a generic avatar in two minutes, according to Argil’s website.

For videos featuring an individual, the individuals need only upload a two-minute video of themselves speaking, upload a consent video that ensures they are the person in the video, record their voice and enter a script by recording audio or typing text, the site said.

Users can then pick camera angles, and label and control the avatar’s body language, per the site.

Argil offers free and paid plans, with the paid plans offering custom avatars, more video minutes per month, editing features and other benefits, according to the site.

Several platforms have been rolling out AI-powered tools for creating videos.

On Nov. 14, TikTok made its AI-powered video-generation tool available to all TikTok for Business users, saying Symphony Creative Studio includes features for generating, transforming and scaling content.

In October, Adobe rolled out an AI model that can use text prompts to generate video. The company creates AI models trained on data that it has the rights to use, thus making sure the results can be legally used in commercial work.

Google launched a new AI video tool called Vids to select users in July, saying the tool could dramatically reduce video production costs and time for businesses. Vids offers features like AI-generated storyboards, customizable templates and a royalty-free stock content library.