Synthesia's Victor Riparbelli On AI Video, Fringe Ideas, And Startup Lies
On The Upstarts Podcast, one of AI's most candid unicorn founders shares his Upstart Moment on the path to a $4B valuation, pitches London to U.S. execs, and calls out other founders for lying.
For years after co-founding Synthesia, founder Victor Riparbelli struggled to win over customers and VCs.
“The problem with fringe ideas is that most of them are wrong, but the few that are right are very, very valuable,” Riparbelli says. “For me, it was always thinking about, ‘am I crazy, or is there something here?’”
Initially, Riparbelli and his co-founders thought they could generate AI videos for Hollywood and creators. But it was a pivot to focus on enterprise — starting with training videos and corporate avatars — that helped Synthesia prove Riparbelli right.
Today, Synthesia takes in more than $150 million in annual recurring revenue; it’s reached a $4 billion valuation, and works with more than 90% of the Fortune 100, from Amazon to IKEA and Merck.
On The Upstarts Podcast, Victor traces his journey from selling World of Warcraft characters as a teenager in Denmark to building one of AI’s most surprising startup success stories in London. He shares his Upstart Moment winning over billionaire Mark Cuban — as well as how Synthesia has navigated deep fake fears and AI skepticism — and why he believes honesty is a rare — and underrated — competitive advantage in the AI startup world.
Plus: below, we share bonus insights from Victor’s fireside chat with Upstarts from our subscriber event in London last month, where he shares a bold take on how the community can attract more top talent.
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Chapters
00:00 Introduction
01:31 Victor’s origins in gaming and music
05:24 Finding startup energy in London
09:24 Synthesia’s founding thesis
12:35 Early struggles and fringe ideas
16:42 Victor’s Upstart Moment
22:13 Video at the chocolate factory
27:31 AI fears and deep fakes
31:10 What’s next for Synthesia
35:22 The rising value of human contact
38:59 Integrity in a lying startup culture
42:21 An interactive future
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A big thanks to Mercury, our presenting sponsor this season, for helping us tell Upstarts stories like this.
The same day we taped this episode in London, we hosted Victor for a fireside chat at a startup ecosystem event in London. It was a lively discussion with great questions from our Upstarts readers, so I’m glad to include several of my favorite lines from that chat in our recap for paid subscribers below, including gems like this:
“It’s much easier to move people from the Bay Area to London than it is to move them from the Bay Area to New York,” he says. “We have culture.”
We break down our top 3 takeaways from both chats below:
Building outside Silicon Valley
Finding joy in selling to business
Handling ‘moral panic’ and startup lies
