Hedra releases video-focused foundation model Character-1
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AI video creation platform Hedra raised $10 million in seed funding, continuing the demand for AI-focused investments and the interest in generative AI-powered creation products.
Hedra, founded by former Nvidia, Google, and Meta employees, has investors including Index Ventures, Abstract and A16Z Speedrun.
As part of its seed round, Hedra also released its video-focused foundation model Character-1 out of stealth. The company said Character-1, which it previewed to researchers in June, is “the fastest video foundation model on the market.
“Until now, creators faced tradeoffs for control and speed via generative video models,” the company said. “[In June], Character-1, our research preview, showed that this is no longer the case. The speed and ease of use are designed to turbocharge the efficiency of content creators and marketers.”
Hedra said more than 350,000 users have used the Character-1 platform and created over 1.6 million videos. The company said many of the videos made with Character-1 have gone viral on Reddit and Instagram. Hedra emphasized that it allows users to create AI popstars and AI-generated content. It also wants to continue improving its safety and content moderation features.
The company plans to focus on making its platform more multimodal so it can “integrate story, sound and video generation into one unified workflow.” Hedra hopes to streamline content creation to allow for the customization of digital avatars and characters using AI.
Hedra’s Character-1 is the latest video generation model to be released to the public in recent months. Haiper 1.5, which came out of stealth in March, said it could challenge OpenAI’s Sora. RunwayML, one of the pioneers of AI-generated videos, publicly launched its Gen-3 Alpha model in July, while Luma AI announced its realistic video platform Dream Machine in June.
Another video platform, Captions, raised $60 million in Series C funding in July.
Larger companies like OpenAI and Google are also in the mix when it comes to gen AI-powered video creation. OpenAI’s Sora has not yet been released to the public, but the company has worked with brands and filmmakers to showcase the platform. Google announced Veo in May.
