Announcing Hedra’s Series A

A year ago, generating lifelike characters — complete with voices, expressions, and motion — from just an image felt impossible. Today, nearly 3 million Hedra users have done exactly that.

AI is changing content creation. Not just how things are made, but who can make them and how fast ideas can move. But getting generative video to actually be useful for people is a different challenge. It needs to slot seamlessly into your workflow, allow for precise control, and let you intuitively bring characters to life.

That’s what we’re focused on at Hedra. Building a platform to make character-centric video effortless.

How we got here

We launched out of stealth in June 2024 with Character-1, one of the first high-speed, controllable video foundation models focused entirely on character-driven storytelling. The demand blew past what we expected.

Rather than chase every opportunity, we made a decision to stay focused and go deep. We doubled down on generating engaging characters performances — eventually leading to the recent release of Character-3, the first omnimodal foundation model in production for AI character video.

We also launched Hedra Studio

A web-based creative platform that lets anyone — from individual creators to marketing teams —turn their ideas into expressive video content in just a few clicks. Along the way, we've grown to around 3 million users, powered over 10 million videos, and helped everyone from TikTok comedians to Fortune 500 marketers bring their stories to life.

The raise

We’re excited to share that we’ve raised $32M in Series A funding, led by Andreessen Horowitz's Infrastructure fund, with Matt Bornstein will be joining the board. Additionally, existing investors including a16z speedrun, Abstract, and Index Ventures will be participating in the round.

This round brings our total funding to $44M and gives us the ability to scale. We’ll grow the team (carefully), invest more in foundation model training, and continue delivering the kind of products we’d want to use ourselves.

But more than anything, it’s a chance to keep building with intention. No gimmicks, no shortcuts — just the platform that helps people and teams create what they want.

What comes next

While the product keeps evolving, our mindset hasn’t: build intentionally, stay close to the people using it, and focus on making something that is valuable.

We’re still a small, deeply hands-on team. We care about the edge cases, the friction points, the things that break the flow of creativity. Because it’s not just about impressive outputs, but rather about making the process feel easier. Faster. More possible.

Whether it’s turning a script into a character performance or an idea into a full campaign, we’re here to make that path smoother. And we’re incredibly grateful to everyone who’s helped shape it so far.

More soon.

P.S. We’re hiring! If you, or someone in your network, is looking for their next opportunity, we’d love to hear from you. Check out our open roles at hedra.com/careers.