# Demi Guo

> Demi Guo is the co-founder and CEO of Pika, an AI-powered video generation platform that has raised $135 million and reached a $470 million valuation. A Harvard math-and-CS graduate and Stanford PhD dropout, she holds silver medals from the International Olympiad in Informatics and gold medals from the Math Prize for Girls. Before founding Pika in April 2023, she was the youngest full-time researcher at Meta AI. Her platform, which lets anyone create cinematic videos from a text prompt, reached 16.4 million users and inspired Pika 2.2 features that went viral with an 800% user surge.

- **Role:** Co-Founder & CEO at Pika
- **Organizations:** Pika, Harvard University, Stanford University, Meta AI Research, Neo Fellowship
- **From:** Hangzhou, China
- **Nationality:** Chinese-American
- **Education:** Bachelor of Arts, Mathematics, Harvard University, Master of Science, Computer Science, Harvard University, PhD, Computer Science (AI Lab) - dropped out, Stanford University
- **Known for:** Silver Medalist, International Olympiad in Informatics (IOI), 2015, Two-time 1st Place, USA Computing Olympiad (USACO) National Open, Gold Medalist, Math Prize for Girls Olympiad

## Career timeline

- **2015** — Won Silver Medal at International Olympiad in Informatics (IOI); selected for International Math Olympiad National Team
- **2015-2017** — Won two-time 1st place, USA Computing Olympiad National Open; Gold Medal, Math Prize for Girls Olympiad
- **2017-2021** — Harvard University - BA Mathematics, MS Computer Science
- **2019-2020** — Software Engineering Internships at Google Brain, Microsoft Bing, and Quora (ML/Infrastructure)
- **2020** — Youngest full-time research engineer at Meta (Facebook) AI Research while at Harvard
- **2021** — Enrolled in Stanford AI Lab PhD program, co-advised by Ron Fedkiw and Chris Manning (NLP + graphics)
- **2021-2022** — Algorithm developer at Hudson River Trading; continued Stanford PhD
- **2022-2023** — Participated in Runway's AI Film Festival; inspired to build better AI video tools
- **2023-04** — Co-founded Pika (initially Mellis Labs) with Chenlin Meng; dropped out of Stanford PhD
- **2023-11** — Pika launched publicly; raised $55M Series A led by Lightspeed Venture Partners
- **2024-06** — Raised $80M Series B led by Spark Capital; valuation reached $470M
- **2024-10** — Pikaffects tool library launched, triggering 800% user growth spike
- **2025** — Launched Pika 2.2 with Pikaframes, Pikadditions, Pikaswaps, Pikatwists; 16.4M registered users
- **2025-06** — Pika integrated into Adobe Firefly
- **2025** — Launched Pika social mobile app (AI Video & Trend Maker)
- **2026-04** — Speaker at HumanX conference, San Francisco

## Achievements

- Silver Medalist, International Olympiad in Informatics (IOI), 2015
- Two-time 1st Place, USA Computing Olympiad (USACO) National Open
- Gold Medalist, Math Prize for Girls Olympiad
- Selected for US International Math Olympiad National Team (2015)
- Youngest full-time research engineer at Meta AI Research
- Neo Fellowship Scholar (first batch)
- Co-founded Pika to $470M valuation with $135M raised
- Pika reached 16.4 million users globally
- Pika integrated into Adobe Firefly (2025)
- 800% user growth surge with Pikaffects launch (Oct 2024)

## Latest updates

- **2026-04** — Speaker at HumanX 2026 conference in San Francisco
- **2025-10** — Pika launched TikTok-like social AI video app targeting Gen Z creators
- **2025-06** — Pika integrated into Adobe Firefly as a video generation tool
- **2025** — Pika 2.2 released with Pikaframes, Pikadditions, Pikaswaps, Pikatwists; 16.4M registered users, 1.4M monthly actives
- **2024-10** — Pikaffects launched, generating 800% user spike
- **2024-06** — Raised $80M Series B led by Spark Capital at $470M valuation

## Links

- Website: https://pika.art
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/demi-g-9a9ab6a1
- Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/demi_guo_
- Facebook: https://facebook.com/pikalabs/

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Profile page: https://yespress.io/demi-guo
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-05-07