Creator Ventures

We have invested in several companies in the interactive avatar space: Praktika.ai (>1M MAUs AI avatar language teacher), ElevenLabs (leading voice AI model) and sync.labs (YC W24) (leading lip sync AI model). So yes, we are very excited about interactive avatars. Today we are publishing our thesis on interactive avatars below. Post includes: ? How interactive avatars differ from video avatars ? Why looking at human faces is an addiction ? Why startups will win vs incumbents ? What needs to happen for interactive avatars (faces) to become the next interface Link in comments below. Cc Caspar Lee

Excited to announce: 1. Leading Praktika.ai's previously unannounced $2.5m seed round alongside Blue Wire Capital and angels 2. Praktika's subsequent $30m Series A led by Blossom Capital (Ophelia Brown) Just a few months between the two... not enough time to announce the seed! If you are reading this (in English), you probably haven’t heard of Praktika, but it provides personalised AI avatar English language tutors, and is one of the fastest growing consumer AI companies in the world, rapidly scaling to over a million users and almost $20m annualized revenues this month. The founders Adam, Ilya and Anton are some of the most uniquely talented, resilient and high-integrity people I’ve ever met, and are taking on one of the biggest TAMs on earth. Avatars will play an important role in the future of learning, and Praktika (alongside Creator Ventures Fund I portfolio company ElevenLabs, which Praktika uses) is planning to be at the centre of this. I will be joining the newly formed Praktika board, and couldn’t be more excited to see where the next few years take us. Other languages will be launched soon so you’ll be able to try it for yourself. Congratulations to the Praktika team for all their successes to date, and to the amazing Ophelia and the Blossom Capital team for winning! Cc Caspar Lee, Adam Turaev, Ilya Chernyakov, Anton Marin, Ophelia Brown, Bertie Highmore, Carles Reina, Namat Bahram, Anne Lee Skates, Mike Butcher ??

We have invested early in two (soon three) companies Building on WhatsApp. They are both growing very fast. One of them recently broke through $1m ARR, and the other is over $10m. We want to double down on the Building on WhatsApp theme, and today we published a deep-dive blog post on the platform shift growing from under our noses. The piece covers history, product, monetisation, and outlook for the biggest platform shift happening right under our noses: Building on WhatsApp. Link below (the piece also includes signup link to the Building on WhatsApp founder/investor community which will soon launch). Cc Caspar Lee

Congrats to the ElevenLabs team on their knockout Series B by Andreessen Horowitz, Nat Friedman & Daniel Gross and Sequoia Capital, and a set of amazing product updates. Cc Mati Staniszewski Piotr Dabkowski Caspar Lee Oliver Kicks Reece Chowdhry