The Week Europe’s Top AI Startup Said No
Few founders ever get the chance to say no to a multibillion-dollar offer.
Last week, Synthesia did it twice: first to Adobe, then to Meta.
The London-based AI video company is now preparing a new funding round that values the business at about $3 billion. It will again include support from NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang.
Before all the attention and headlines, Synthesia had already raised $180 million from investors such as NEA, Google Ventures, Atlassian Ventures, WiL, and PSP Growth, reaching a $2.1 billion valuation.
Today, we are sharing the deck that made it happen.
How It All Started
When
and I met Victor Riparbelli in Synthesia’s London office, he said something that defined the company’s journey:> “We started doing AI before ChatGPT even existed.”
In 2017, the idea of making Hollywood-quality videos directly from a laptop sounded impossible. There was no generative AI wave, no playbook, and no buzzwords. Only a small group of engineers in London who believed that neural networks could change how people tell stories.
The world saw AI as a tool for analytics. Victor saw it as a way to create.
Rejection and Resilience
> “We were turned down by more than a hundred VCs,” Victor told us.
At the time, the market for AI video did not exist. Investors simply could not see the potential.
Synthesia came close to running out of money until Victor sent a cold email to Mark Cuban.
Five minutes later, Cuban replied.
Fourteen hours later, he wired $1 million.
That single sentence, “I’m in for $1 million,” saved the company.
The $180M Pitch Deck
We are sharing the 18-slide Series D deck that convinced NEA, Google Ventures, and Atlassian Ventures to invest.
It is simple, direct, and tells a story that investors remember. A model of clarity for anyone raising capital in 2025:
Listen to this episode with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to The VC Corner to listen to this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.
