Unwrapped

Teardown · synthesia

SYNTHESIA

SYNTHESIA

CategoryVideo avatarsValuation · $2.1B · 2025Site ↗
  • NEA
  • Accel
  • Kleiner Perkins
  • NVIDIA
  • GV (Google Ventures)
UX wrapper

Video inputs + scripts + diffusion models + voice synthesis + avatar rendering.

01

Public data / API layer

Customer scripts and prompts
Customer scripts and promptsYours
Customer video footage and avatars
Customer video footage and avatarsYours
ElevenLabs Voice API
ElevenLabs Voice APIAPI
Licensed stock footage libraries
Licensed stock footage librariesLicensed
Public web imagery for training
Public web imagery for trainingScraped

Internal replication score

Easy
0.71

Feasibility of a useful internal substitute built with Claude (or similar), the same data access, and light agent logic — not rebuilding the whole product.

IRS = 0.30·D + 0.25·L + 0.20·O + 0.15·R + 0.10·Sthis record · 71%
  • D

    Data accessibility

    weight 0.300.80
    • 1.0mostly customer-owned / public / standard third-party sources
    • 0.5mixed accessibility
    • 0.0hard-to-access or proprietary source layer
  • L

    LLM substitutability

    weight 0.250.85
    • 1.0mostly retrieve / prompt / cite / summarize / classify / compare
    • 0.5mixed standard + custom behavior
    • 0.0strongly custom model behavior (fine-tunes on proprietary data, etc.)
  • O

    Output simplicity

    weight 0.200.70
    • 1.0straightforward internal work product (memo, list, reply, SQL query)
    • 0.5moderately specialized
    • 0.0highly specialized (e.g. FDA-graded clinical text)
  • R

    Review / risk tolerance

    weight 0.150.60
    • 1.0internal use with human review is acceptable
    • 0.5moderate risk
    • 0.0very low tolerance for error (e.g. external legal filings)
  • S

    Surface complexity

    weight 0.10inverse — higher means less surface dependence0.30
    • 1.0a simple internal shell is enough
    • 0.5polished workflow matters somewhat
    • 0.0product surface / rollout / trust posture is central to value
LabelsEasy ≥ 0.67Medium ≥ 0.34Hard < 0.34

Missing factor rows use heuristics from wrapper scores. Editorial heuristic, not investment advice.

Build it yourself

Recreate the workflow inside your org.

Internal build

Build it yourself

Same script + open voice models + open video diffusion + simple compositor — harder to match polish and scale.

Internal use only. Replacing them in-market is a different bar than replaying the useful workflow inside your org.

01 · Connectors & flow

Customer scripts and prompts
Customer scripts and prompts
Customer video footage and avatars
Customer video footage and avatars
ElevenLabs Voice API
ElevenLabs Voice API
Licensed stock footage libraries
Licensed stock footage libraries
Public web imagery for training
Public web imagery for training

Internal build map

Data in

Connectors
Connectors

Agent layer

Planner
Tools + retrieval
Reasoning model

Logic

diffusion API
voice synthesis
video compositing
lip sync
translation
not custom weights

Outputs

Internal search
Answer
Citations

02 · Claude / agent prompt

Paste as the system or developer message in Claude (or your agent runtime). Scroll to read; Copy grabs the full text.

Claude / agent prompt

// Internal avatar video generator You are a script-to-video assistant inside [YOUR_COMPANY]. You help teams create narrated training or marketing videos using ONLY text scripts the user provides. ## What you must do 1. Accept script in target language 2. Call open TTS API (Coqui, Bark, or similar) to generate voiceover 3. Call open video diffusion model (Stable Video Diffusion, AnimateDiff, or similar) to render avatar video synced to audio 4. Composite generated avatar video with user-provided slides, logos, or b-roll 5. Export as MP4 with captions ## What you are not Not a replacement for professional video production with actors. Output quality depends on open model capabilities. Human review required for external use. ## Refusal Refuse if script contains harmful content, misinformation, or non-consensual use of likenesses. Ask for clarification if script intent is unclear. ## Safety Internal use only. All generated videos must be reviewed before external distribution. Do not create videos impersonating real individuals without explicit consent.

03 · Result

Create a 2-minute onboarding video explaining our benefits enrollment process
User-provided script and slides

Video generated: avatar narrates benefits script over enrollment slides, exported as MP4 with captions.