According to TechCrunch, British AI startup Synthesia has raised a $200 million Series E funding round, led by existing investor GV, which pushes its valuation to $4 billion. That’s up from $2.1 billion just a year ago. The company, which creates AI-generated avatars for corporate training videos, hit $100 million in annual recurring revenue back in April 2025. In a key part of this round, Synthesia is partnering with Nasdaq to facilitate a structured secondary sale, allowing employees to cash out shares at the new $4 billion valuation. The round also brings in new investors Evantic and Hedosophia, while the company says its next strategic focus is developing interactive AI agents.
The real news is the cash out
Look, another AI unicorn raising a huge round at a doubled valuation is almost routine these days. But here’s the thing: the coordinated employee secondary sale is the real story. It’s a clever and frankly generous move. Early employees at startups like this are often sitting on paper wealth for a decade or more, waiting for an IPO or acquisition that might never come at the right price. This gives them a real, tangible reward for building the company to this point. And by using Nasdaq’s private markets platform and tying it to the official Series E price, Synthesia avoids the messy, off-market sales that can cause internal drama. It’s a sign of a mature company thinking about its people, not just its backers.
From videos to agents
The pivot—or let’s say expansion—into AI agents is fascinating, but also feels inevitable. Basically, every AI software company is now an “AI agent” company. Synthesia’s angle makes sense, though. They’re not starting from scratch; they’re layering interactivity on top of their core competency of simulating human presence. Instead of just watching a training video with a fake person, you could role-play a sales call or interrogate a company policy with one. It’s a logical next step if you want to move beyond a nice-to-have video tool to an essential, systemic platform for enterprise knowledge. The early pilot feedback they mention is crucial—if it actually leads to faster knowledge transfer, that’s a powerful ROI story for CFOs.
A blueprint for other unicorns?
Synthesia’s head of corporate affairs basically said it: as companies stay private longer, these structured liquidity events will become more common. And he’s probably right. This solves a major pain point in the modern venture landscape. Venture capitalists get their pro-rata to keep betting on the horse, early employees get life-changing money without having to quit, and the company retains control and avoids the scrutiny of the public markets. It’s a win-win-win, at least on paper. The fact that a UK-based company is pioneering this with a US exchange like Nasdaq is also a signal. The best private companies are building global, liquid markets for their shares long before the ticker tape rolls. Others will be watching closely.
The enterprise AI gold rush
Let’s step back. Synthesia’s financials tell a compelling story in an AI market often fueled by hype. $100 million ARR is serious, enterprise-grade traction. Clients like Bosch and SAP aren’t experimenting with fun filters; they’re buying a mission-critical training solution. This puts Synthesia in a rarefied group of AI companies with real, scaled revenue. It also highlights where the money in AI is actually being made right now: boring, unsexy enterprise processes. While consumers play with chatbots, corporations are writing big checks for anything that can make their workforce more efficient or better trained. Synthesia, with its expanding global footprint, has carved out a lucrative niche. Now, the question is whether AI agents expand that niche or distract from it. But with a fresh $200 million and a happy team, they’ve bought themselves the runway to find out.
