Generative artificial intelligence, used to create content from text to pictures to videos, remains to be on the rise. Big Tech and startups across the globe are racing to compete and launch their very own AI-powered chatbots, text-to-image generators, and video tools.

Amongst them is a Bellevue, Washington–based startup called Irreverent Labs, whose AI technology enables anyone to create a video, and which, like a variety of its rivals, just closed on a latest round of funding. Samsung Next led the round; Irreverent isn’t disclosing how much as a consequence of Samsung’s corporate policy.

The round is just not the primary for Irreverent Labs, which was founded in 2021 and raised $45 million in funding last yr, led by Andreessen Horowitz. On the time, Irreverent was described by media outlets as a blockchain company, one which had developed a robot cockfighting game called MechaFightClub that used non-fungible tokens (NFTs). But the corporate insists now that the sport was a option to showcase what is basically a big machine learning model that, within the case of Irreverant Labs, will allow users to make videos using various inputs, from images to text to audio, later this yr.

Indeed, in accordance with Irreverent Labs’ co-founder and CEO, Rahul Sood, the corporate elected to work more closely with Samsung as a strategic investor partly to access Samsung Next portfolio firms that should want to use its API. Further, the outfit will likely be working with Samsung’s device units with the intention to develop a bigger distribution strategy, Sood explained.

Sood, a serial entrepreneur, founded Irreverent Labs with David Raskino, who today is the corporate’s CTO. The duo met in 2011 at Microsoft, where they arrange Microsoft Enterprise together. Sood left Microsoft for a latest game enterprise, while Raskino began a enterprise fund in 2014.

The co-founders’ conversations about Irreverent gained momentum after Sood’s previous company was acquired in 2021. “While David aspired to construct an AI application for business purposes, I used to be more all in favour of doing something around entertainment,” Sood said. “Consequently, the inception of Irreverent Labs merged, characterised as an ‘automated entertainment company.’”

Though it initially used its AI technology to construct video games, it realized that allowing users to generate every kind of short videos, including 3D, presented a much larger opportunity.

“At Irreverent, we’re on a mission to make it possible for anyone to create compelling short-form video entertainment with AI,” said Sood, explaining how the product would work. “Users can visit the web site and upload a brief video prompt like a live photo. We’ll then predict a brief, high-quality video from these frames. It’s super easy.” (Irreverent will announce the name of the web site users can visit later this yr.)

The startup will eventually make it possible to make use of multiple inputs like text to direct the motion and add characters, audio, and the start/ending frames users can upload, in accordance with Sood. “We’ll generate the movie to fill within the blanks,” he added.

Initially, Irreverent’s users will likely be people who find themselves already making short-form content repeatedly and uploading on platforms like Tiktok, YouTube and Instagram. Later, it expects its AI foundation models will enable “individuals who do not need classical video production experience to create short video content.” The corporate will even be targeting the developer ecosystem, because it plans to release an API, in addition to enterprise customers.

“The probabilities that Irreverent Labs’ technology unlocks are vast, and the potential impact on the mobile devices in our pockets and backpacks and the televisions mounted on our lounge partitions are immense,” said Joan Kim, investor at Samsung Next. “From concept to reality, this revolutionary model bridges the gap between imagination and execution.”