Recent developments in visual generative AI, from models like OpenAI’s Sora, have indicated the technology’s transformative potential. But, for the technology to reach the next stage, companies will need to scale models and the data behind them to better understand and reflect the inherent physics of the world, from light to texture to interactions between objects.
UK-based Haiper offers a distributed data processing and model training infrastructure, which is designed to be scaled up for the company to become Europe’s powerhouse for video-generative AI.
Recently, Haiper has raised $13.8 million in seed funding. The round was led by Octopus Ventures that invested in Harbiz, Kita, and Flock. This brings Haiper’s total funding to $19.2 million ahead of its upcoming Series A round this year. With this, the company emerged out of stealth mode.
AI brains come together
Haiper was founded in 2021 by Dr. Yishu Miao and Dr. Ziyu Wang, both with PhDs in Machine Learning from Oxford University and former Researchers at DeepMind. Dr Wang was a key contributor to DeepMind programs AlphaStar and AlphaGo and also served as a Staff Research Scientist at Google Brain, while Dr Miao previously founded and led the London ML team building large language models (LLMs) for Global Trust & Safety at TikTok.
The company’s co-founders have experience working alongside AI pioneers, including Geoffrey Hinton, Nando de Freitas (principal scientist of DeepMind), and Phil Blunsom – currently Chief Scientist at Cohere.
In addition, Haiper has partnered with several top academic labs from the likes of the University of Oxford, University of Cambridge University of British Columbia, Simon Fraser University, and Fashion Innovation Agency at London College of Fashion.
What does Haiper do?
Haiper is an all-in-one visual foundation model for publishers, studios and individuals. It enables everyone, even those without technical training and experience, to easily generate high-quality video content. Over the next few months, Haiper will develop and release a series of large trained models that will push the boundaries of technology-enabled creativity and imagination. By playing, experimenting, and providing feedback, its users will grow the power and potential of its proprietary visual foundation model.
AI-powered tools for creativity
Haiper’s current tools include text-to-video, which enables users to input written prompts which then produce short video content, from practical, creative requests to fun or thought-provoking prompts that can be shared on social media. Users have full creative licence over the direction of the content, and can continually amend characters, objects, backgrounds, artistic styles and more, to have granular control over the final visual product. It lets creators upload and animate their own images and photos in a variety of styles and bring them to life.
Its AI that can understand, interpret, and generate complex video content will also possess a deep understanding of the world around it and have applications across other industries, from robotics to transportation.
Dr Yishu Miao, co-founder and CEO of Haiper, stated: “As the barrier between ideation and implementation lowers, Haiper’s powerful foundation model will give many in the industry the opportunity to develop stunning content and visualise their ideas in ways that were previously impossible. Our time in stealth was spent building up crucial distributed data processing and model training infrastructure, which we’re excited to use this funding to scale.”
Rebecca Hunt, Partner at Octopus Ventures added: “At Octopus, we look to back exceptionally talented founders who have a unique insight into a market and a strong technical edge. Only resilient, experienced teams can build cutting-edge products and solutions, and with Haiper this is no different. The deeply technical foundations of Haiper have enabled them to innovate and make breakthroughs at a pace we haven’t yet seen in the AI Video space; they are sure to become one of Europe’s big AI players. We look forward to continuing to back Yishu and Ziyu on their world-changing mission.”
