In a short video, a man explains how to make fajitas in an airfryer. The video, being played on AI-based video editing app Captions, is automatically generating subtitles in a bold font. Gaurav Misra, CEO and cofounder of Captions, then proceeds to show how the app’s translation tool can be used to dub the entire video into another language, Hindi.
This demo, says Misra, highlights how his company makes it easier for video creators to reach a wider audience. In addition, the video-editing startup announced Thursday that it has raised $25 million in a Series B round led by Silicon Valley VC firm Kleiner Perkins with participation from Sequoia Capital, Andreessen Horowitz and SV Angel. The fresh injection of cash brings the startup's valuation to $250 million and total funds raised to $40 million.
Captions has its origins in Misra’s time leading the design engineering team at Snap Inc. from 2016 till 2021. During this time, he witnessed an evolution of social media videos — from TikTok-style dance videos to Instagram Reels to YouTube Shorts. He also saw the rise of a new category; “talking videos,” in which creators address the camera directly, were gaining traction. In 2020, Misra left Snap and joined his former colleague Dwight Churchill, who left Goldman Sachs, to cofound Captions.
Since then, about 3 million creators have used the app to automatically caption and edit videos, in categories as widespread as golf, real estate and aviation Misra says. The app has about 100,000 daily active users and about a million videos are created on the platform each month. It’s not, however, in the market alone. The New York-based startup is up against more established companies like Bytedance-owned editing app CapCut, which