During their winter vacation last year, Demi Guo and a few of her computer science PhD classmates from Stanford attempted to use generative AI to create a film. They were sure they had a good chance of winning the $10,000 top prize at the first-ever “AI Film Festival” hosted by the buzzy artificial intelligence video editing startup Runway, which had recently reached a valuation of $500 million.
Unfortunately, Guo’s squad finished dead last. She explained to Forbes, “We really struggled to make the film,” despite being the most technically proficient team. Even while advances in AI have been encouraging, Guo found it very difficult to implement them into the video-making process. He spent a lot of time experimenting with programs like Runway and Adobe Photoshop, but he only had moderate results and was frustrated. The honors were ultimately bestowed upon working creatives. For her, the film’s visual quality was lacking. “I was so frustrated.”
Guo and his fellow PhD student Chenlin Meng left Stanford in April to start Pika, an easy-to-use artificial intelligence video creator. Since then, the program has been tested by almost half a million people, and users are making millions of movies weekly. The four-person business has successfully collected $55 million over three investment rounds, thanks to the Silicon Valley investor frenzy caused by the spike in interest. An insider has revealed that Pika Labs is valued at $200 million to $300 million after receiving three funding rounds, the most recent being a $35 million Series A from Lightspeed Venture Partners. Nat Friedman, the former CEO of GitHub, managed the previous two rounds.
We'd also like to thank everyone who has supported us along this journey: @AravSrinivas, @svangel , @Unusual_VC , @ViviNevo, @matistanis, @keithpeiris, @sasmith4, @vipulved, @cjc, @shaneguML, @0interestrates, @russelljkaplan, @annbordetsky, @dina_yrl, @pumatheuma, @chandlersyf,…
— Pika (@pika_labs) November 28, 2023
Guo, also the chief executive officer, stated, “We’re trying to redesign the interface of video-making.” “Making good videos is still incredibly challenging.” Pika’s movie generator has only been accessible via the messaging program Discord. Anyone can use the chat feature to send a user a video response; for instance, “a robot walking on the beach at sunset” might be one possible description. Adding sunglasses to the previously mentioned robot was just one example of how Pika expanded their reach to a whole new mainstream audience on Tuesday with a new app and features that let users alter and personalize objects within videos.” A startup’s biggest weapon and biggest advantage is speed, and this is honestly the fastest-moving team I’ve ever seen.”
Excited to share that I recently left Stanford AI PhD to start Pika. Words can't express how grateful I am to have all the support from our investors, advisors, friends, and community members along this journey!
And there's nothing more exciting than working on this ambitious &… https://t.co/B1djiA6jn1— Demi Guo (@demi_guo_) November 28, 2023
After leaving GitHub in 2021, Nat Friedman quickly became a prominent single investor in the artificial intelligence area; in April of this year, he was the first to invest in Pika. A single graphics processing unit (GPU) powers most artificial intelligence (AI) computer activities; in an interview with Forbes, he expressed his admiration for an early demo version that Guo and Meng had assembled using this chip. Andromeda is a cluster of over 2,500 GPUs that Friedman and his frequent co-investor Daniel Gross use to support the businesses in which they have invested. In the same vein as OpenAI’s text-based GPT-4 and Midjourney’s image-based models, that boosted Pika’s attempts to construct a proprietary AI model for video. When it first started out, Pika’s sole purpose was to create anime. Since more established, well-funded businesses like Runway and Stability AI had a leg up in the market, the founders informed Friedman that it would be too tough to tackle the problem of artificial intelligence video generation. Adobe, on the other hand, was a public market powerhouse worth $280 billion that was swift to integrate AI within Creative Suite. Investments were taken aback by Guo and Meng’s lightning-fast growth, which caught everyone off guard.
Friedman that they include a feature to insert text into films one summer afternoon. According to a text message he got at 3 a.m., the function was ready. Even though Friedman was initially taken aback, he quickly came to terms with the fact that the team’s “very intense” tempo was par for the course. The experience “helped convince me to do the next investment,” he explains. “A startup’s biggest weapon and biggest advantage is speed, and this is honestly the fastest moving team I’ve ever seen,” said Michael Mignano, a partner at Lightspeed who invested in September, describing Pika’s workforce as very efficient.
After Pika’s founders warned Friedman that making realistic videos would be too challenging, they succeeded within weeks. And when Mignano mentioned a web app in November, Guo interpreted it as a command to release the product that month. Demi Guo, CEO of Pika, and Chenlin Meng, cofounder and chief technology officer, both had artistic aspirations when they were younger. According to Guo, their AI video tool isn’t designed for experts: “What we’re trying to do is something more for everyday consumers — people like me and Chenlin.”
Our goal is not to create a tool for the movie industry. More for the average consumer is what we’re aiming for. To construct a revised version of the AI model it introduced today, Pika is currently leasing several hundred GPUs, some of which come from Friedman’s Andromeda cluster and some from other cloud providers, according to Pika CEO Demi Guo. Its intended purpose is to facilitate enhanced performance and finer-grained editing, such as changing a video’s aspect ratio. The business is also in the midst of building algorithms to screen copyrighted goods, which have caught competitors off guard and led to expensive intellectual property disputes, and tweaking existing algorithms to make the model even better. Guo stated, “Right now, that’s still very exploratory.” Now that they have more money, Guo says she will hire 20 more people, mostly engineers and researchers, to join Pika’s team next year. She mentioned that the company is considering implementing a tiered membership model where users may pay for access to more features in the future, but monetizing the product isn’t a top priority for now.
Introducing Pika 1.0, the idea-to-video platform that brings your creativity to life.
Create and edit your videos with AI.
Rolling out to new users on web and discord, starting today. Sign up at https://t.co/JHRrinsIwx pic.twitter.com/Rve3I2FzmK
— Pika (@pika_labs) November 28, 2023
That is also Guo’s strategy for setting Pika apart from its larger competitors. She informed Forbes that their goal was not to create a product for use in filmmaking. “Our goal is to cater to the average consumer, those who are creatives at heart but not quite at the professional level, like [Meng] and myself,” Guo claims that her Stanford team would have been more competitive at the AI Film Festival a year ago if a tool similar to Pika had been available. She expressed her belief that it would have been incredibly beneficial.
