The global digital video content market is expected to increase from $214 billion in 2024 to $574 billion in 2033, driven by unlimited demand in the entertainment, marketing and education sectors. In this boom, the enterprise video platform segment is expected to triple, growing from $25.1 billion in 2025 to $76.08 billion in 2032. In this high-growth environment, Hedra is becoming one of the most promising AI-NENATIDE platforms in a way that redefines digital stories and provides scaling, and delivers scaling, and delivers.
Today, the San Francisco-based company announced it has raised $32 million in Series A funding, funded by Andreessen Horowitz’s Infrastructure Fund (A16Z INFRA). Also participated in return investor A16Z Speedrun, summary and index venture capital, bringing Hedra’s total funding to $44 million. The pay raise will allow Hedra to actively expand its platform, Hedra Studio, and deepen the development of its role 3 basic model, i.e. technology that allows anyone to generate movie-quality video performances using only text, images and audio.
Vision: To bring the character to life with AI
Founded by Michael Lingelbach, Hedra has a unique background as a dramatic actor, and Stanford AI researchers helped shape tasks based on performance, storytelling and accessible technology. “We think the most influential story is character-driven,” explain Lingelbach. “Hedra exists to make it easy for anyone (marketers, educators, creators) to generate video content, where trusted digital characters can tell stories.”
This philosophy peaks in Role 3, a proprietary comprehensive foundational model capable of blending text descriptions, visual inputs, and audio into highly expressive character videos. Unlike existing avatar-based tools that produce robots, stiff animations, Character 3 offers human-like mobility, nuances and emotional ranges—the characters are lifelike spokespersons, stylized brand mascots, and even cartoon animals.
Role 3: The technology behind comprehensive and controllable technology
Role-3 is one of the earliest integrated basic models in production, meaning that it not only supports multi-modal input (text, audio, and images), but is deeply intertwined to simulate all character performance.
Here is how it works:
-
enter: The user first enters the script or uploads the audio clip. Additionally, they can clone sounds using Elevenlabs, the integrated voice partner of Hedra, which supports custom sounds, accents, languages, and emotional tones.
-
Visual generation: Characters can be created using Hedra’s built-in image generator, uploaded directly by the user, or improved with style presets to achieve realism, animation or surrealism.
-
synthesis: Character-3 generates full-body or upper body animations, combining lip synchronization, facial micro expression, body language and scene context, and has smooth timing and coordinated audio-visual cues.
-
Post-processing: Background, movie camera angles and sports styles are automatically or manually adjusted in Hedra Studio.
This process is usually completed in just a few minutes, allowing the team to publish videos faster than any traditional production workflow.
What makes Hedra unique
While many generative video tools focus on avatars or simple talk heads, Hedra’s power lies in its creative flexibility and end-to-end storytelling focus. The platform is already popular with over 2.5 million users, from Tiktok creators to marketing agencies, and is now rapidly expanding into the enterprise space.
This is where Hedra sees its most important opportunity: a corporate team that requires a rich character, emotional appeal and brand-continuous video content. Brands can now spend weeks and tens of thousands of dollars to spend weeks and tens of thousands of dollars, but instead:
- Launch a real-time campaign related to the boom moment
- Accurate voice synthesis positioning of video content and language
- Generate a spokesperson video for product onboarding or announcements
- Continuous Actors who build digital brand ambassadors
“We are building the basic technology for the next generation of media,” explain Matt Bernsteina partner at Andreessen Horowitz and a member of the new Hedra board of directors. “Role-3 is not only realistic, but it is also rich, controllable and modular. This is the closest thing we’ve ever seen to a real AI actor.”
Hedra Studio: Creative Command Center
To support this vision, Hedra offers Hedra Studio, an intuitive web platform that requires no design or editing experience. Its drag and drop interface allows anyone to build a complete scene with character animation, voiceover and environment control. Users can work from templates or start from scratch – ideal for quick experimentation and iteration.
The popular video types supported by the platform include:
- Product Interpreter and tutorials
- Social Media Reel and meme driver formats
- Leader’s campaign Use frequently occurring digital characters
- Local training video For internal teams or clients
Thanks to Elevenlabs’ integration, creators can give their characters natural sounds in dozens of languages, including real-time translation and expression intonation control. The result is a platform that gives technological complexity creative ambitions.
The road ahead
With its Series A capital, Hedra plans to triple its 20-person team, scale computing infrastructure for faster rendering and continue to develop the next iteration of its role model. New features are already in effect, including:
- real time Interactive characters For real-time network experience
- Integrate with 3D engine and motion capture data
- Building custom AI video experience with API access on the platform
Lingelbach Emphasizing that Hydera’s growth will remain focused and thoughtful. “We don’t want to be everything for everyone,” He said. “We care a lot about usability, realism, and help clients tell stories they never thought of.”
The overall situation: Generate media, people-oriented design
As businesses increasingly look for AI to create content, platforms like Hedra are redefining the meaning of “video production”. Instead of outsourcing or using static design tools, brands can now use software speed and studio production quality to generate tailored emotionally resonant content.
Hedra is not trying to replace film producers or marketers, but provides them with a new set of tools. Give creativity, adapt to context and enable large-scale storytelling tools.
With this new funding, Hedra not only positioned it as a product, but also as a movement towards a new media paradigm where stories are generated rather than shot, and creativity is no longer bound by time, cost or skill.
