synthetic-media
(6)
Bezel
Bezel is a Y Combinator (W25) startup that generates studio-quality photos and videos of apparel on photorealistic AI human models. Fashion and e-commerce brands upload a clothing image, pick a preset model, and get shoot-ready stills and video in seconds - replacing shoots that cost thousands of dollars and take days. Founded in 2025 in New York by Kashyap Achar, the company positions itself as an on-demand content engine for brands that need constant creative variety for ad testing.
DeepBrain AI
DeepBrain AI is a generative-AI company that builds hyper-realistic digital humans. Its flagship platform, AI Studios, turns plain text scripts into professional avatar-led videos in minutes, while its AI Human technology powers real-time conversational avatars used in kiosks, virtual receptionists, banking, and AI news anchors. Founded in Seoul in 2016 and now operating from Palo Alto and beyond, the company serves enterprises across media, finance, education, and the public sector with tools that remove cameras, studios, and actors from video production.
Piyush Verma
Piyush Verma is the co-founder and CEO of Neural Defend, an AI cybersecurity startup that detects deepfakes across video, audio, images, and real-time streams. A two-time founder and former MIT, Harvard, and Tsinghua researcher, he previously built Manush Labs, an impact accelerator backed by billionaire Desh Deshpande, and founded the MIT India Initiative. A Forbes 30 Under 30 honoree and MIT Tata Fellow trained in design at IIT Delhi, Verma now works to defend real human identities against synthetic deception, with Neural Defend raising $600K in pre-seed funding and partnering with Zee News on India's first media-led deepfake verification system.
Loti AI
Loti AI is a Seattle-based startup that scans the public internet to find, verify, and remove unauthorized uses of a person's face and voice - including deepfakes, AI impersonations, scams, and leaked content. Founded in 2022 by Luke Arrigoni, Rebekah Arrigoni, and Hirak Chhatbar, the company began protecting A-list celebrities through talent agencies like WME and CAA, then opened a free consumer tier so anyone can claim control of their own likeness. Its automated takedown engine removes flagged content with roughly a 95% success rate, typically within about 17 hours.
Eric Jang
Eric Seyoung Jang is the Founder and CEO of DeepBrain AI, a Palo Alto-based company building hyper-realistic AI avatars, video synthesis technology, and conversational AI systems. Inspired by AlphaGo's 2016 defeat of Go champion Lee Sedol, he pivoted from fintech to artificial intelligence and built what became the first company to commercially deploy video synthesis at scale - from AI news anchors in Chinese broadcast studios to AI bankers in Korean bank branches. Under his leadership, DeepBrain AI raised $44M in Series B funding at a $180M valuation and set its sights on becoming the world's leading generative AI enterprise.
Michael Matias
Michael Matias is the co-founder and CEO of Clarity, a New York-based AI cybersecurity company building world-leading deepfake detection technology. A Stanford computer science graduate, Unit 8200 IDF veteran, and former partner at Eric Schmidt's Innovation Endeavors, Matias has invested in 80+ deep-tech startups through Matias Ventures, hosted over 1,000 episodes of the 20MinuteLeaders podcast, authored the book 'Age Is Only an Int,' and written for leading Israeli financial newspapers. Clarity raised a $16M seed round in 2024 led by Bessemer Venture Partners and Walden Catalyst Ventures.