The Story
From life-sized 3D to half-a-paisa video
Most brands never film video for the vast majority of their catalog. There is no budget, no time, and no crew for the ten-thousandth SKU. Avataar looked at that gap for a decade - first with 3D and augmented reality, now with generative video - and built tools that make the work everyone skips almost free.
Founded in Bengaluru in 2014 by Sravanth Aluru and co-founders Prashanth Aluru, Gaurav Baid and Mayank Tiwari, Avataar began as an applied computer-vision company. Its early promise was spatial: put a life-sized, interactive 3D version of a product into a shopper's hands, right in their living room, through a phone screen. That thesis powered visual discovery for some of the largest global e-commerce marketplaces and direct-to-consumer brands, and in January 2022 it attracted a $45 million Series B led by Tiger Global with Sequoia Capital India (now Peak XV Partners) - at the time one of the largest rounds the applied 3D/AR space had seen.
Then the ground shifted. Generative AI turned the expensive, artisanal work of 3D asset creation into something a model could increasingly do on its own. Rather than defend the old pitch, Avataar followed the technology. By late 2024 it was testing a fully automated tool called Velocity; by January 2025 it had launched publicly; and by mid-2026 the company had gone further still, releasing its own distilled video model, Varya, built specifically for e-commerce and for India's scale.
"Create a virtual, life-sized embodiment of the physical world that can co-exist within our physical spaces."
- Avataar's founding mission, as described at launch
