Victor Riparbelli

Victor Riparbelli was born in September 1991; his name as registered with the UK’s Companies House is Victor Riparbelli Rasmussen, and he is a Danish national.⁠[1]

He grew up in Copenhagen as the eldest of three brothers; his mother was a journalist who later became chief executive of a Danish lifestyle-media company, and his father ran traditional, non-tech businesses.⁠[2]

As a teenager he sold World of Warcraft accounts and built websites and online stores for local businesses.⁠[2]

By his own account he always wanted to be a musician, and he still produces electronic music in his spare time.⁠[3]

He studied for a joint honours degree in computer science and business at the IT University of Copenhagen, spending a semester at Stanford UniversityStanford UniversityStanford University is a research university in California founded by Leland and Jane Stanford in 1885 and opened in 1891.Open the full entry as part of it.⁠[3]

Rather than join a big tech company, he moved to London, where he first worked as a virtual reality consultant.⁠[3]

On August 10, 2016, he became a director of the UK company Immersive Futures Limited, which was later dissolved.⁠[4]

After a year of exploring VR, AR and AI startup ideas, he met Matthias Niessner and was captivated by Niessner’s research on AI video generation at Stanford University.⁠[5]

Synthesia Limited was incorporated in England on August 25, 2017, registered for software development.⁠[6]

Riparbelli and Steffen Tjerrild-Hansen have been directors since that day; Lourdes Agapito became a director the same day and resigned on April 3, 2019.⁠[7]

He co-founded Synthesia with Matthias Niessner, Lourdes Agapito and Steffen Tjerrild and became its chief executive.⁠[8]

In November 2018 Synthesia made its debut with a BBCBBCThe BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation) is the United Kingdom’s public broadcaster. Its predecessor was the British Broadcasting Company, formed in 1922, and since 1927 it has been established under a Royal Charter. It provides television, radio, and online services in the UK, is funded mainly by the television licence fee, and broadcasts worldwide in multiple languages through BBC World Service.Open the full entry demonstration in which the newsreader Matthew Amroliwala spoke three languages.⁠[9]

Riparbelli recalled that for about three years the company provided AI translation and dubbing to film studios and ad agencies, a “mildly successful” business that was hard to scale: a 30-second clip took two PhDs about 10 days.⁠[10]

Synthesia worked with Malaria No More, RG/A and Ridley Scott Associates on a synthetic video of David Beckham speaking nine languages to campaign against malaria; it won a CogX award for outstanding achievement in social good use of AI in 2019.⁠[11]

In April 2019 Synthesia announced a $3.1 million round led by LDV Capital; Mark CubanMark CubanMark Cuban is an American entrepreneur and investor whose early work in computer systems and internet audio and video expanded into sports, film, venture investment and pharmaceuticals. He was the Dallas Mavericks’ controlling owner and a longstanding investor on Shark Tank, and co-founded Mark Cuban Cost Plus Drug Company.Open the full entry was an early investor.⁠[9]

He recalled that after a first raise of about $1 million the company struggled to raise again, eventually securing a smaller $3 million that funded its first real product iteration, launched in 2020.⁠[2]

Seedcamp began backing the team of Riparbelli and Steffen Tjerrild in 2019, when the company had about 10 employees.⁠[12]

Around 2021, inbound enterprise interest led Synthesia to refocus on training and onboarding videos.⁠[10]

On April 21, 2021, Synthesia announced a $12.5 million Series A led by Matt Turck of FirstMark Capital.⁠[13]

In December 2021 Synthesia closed a $50 million Series B led by Kleiner Perkins, with GV among the participants. Riparbelli said the platform’s power users were not video teams but other departments.⁠[14]

In the preceding year the platform had generated more than 6 million videos for thousands of clients, including EY and WPPWPPWPP (WPP plc) is a marketing and communications services group headquartered in London. Its predecessor was Wire and Plastic Products, a wire and plastic products company registered in 1971; from 1985 it was transformed into a multinational communications services group and went on to acquire advertising groups including J. Walter Thompson, Ogilvy, Young & Rubicam and Grey. The company is listed on the London Stock Exchange, and its American Depositary Shares trade on the New York Stock Exchange (both under the symbol WPP); as of October 2026, its chief executive officer is Cindy Rose.Open the full entry. Riparbelli said users simply “select an avatar, type the script, hit generate.”⁠[15]

On June 13, 2023, Synthesia announced a $90 million Series C at a $1 billion valuation, led by Accel with NVIDIANVIDIANVIDIA is an American semiconductor and computing technology company that provides graphics processing units, artificial intelligence infrastructure, networking interconnects, and computing software, and is listed on Nasdaq under the ticker NVDA.Open the full entry’s NVentures participating.⁠[16]

On June 2, 2023, Accel’s Philippe Botteri became a director of Synthesia Limited.⁠[7]

Riparbelli said: “We’ve made great strides toward our vision to make video easy for everyone, but there’s still a long way to go.”⁠[17]

Synthesia was a launch partner, alongside AdobeAdobeAdobe (Adobe Inc.) is a software company headquartered in San Jose, California, founded in 1982 by John Warnock and Charles Geschke. Known for PostScript, PDF and creative software such as Acrobat, Photoshop, Illustrator, Premiere Pro and After Effects, it moved its main creative products to Creative Cloud subscriptions from 2013 and expanded into digital marketing and generative AI; it is listed on Nasdaq under the ticker ADBE.Open the full entry, the BBC, OpenAIOpenAIOpenAI is an artificial intelligence research and product organization founded in 2015 that develops the GPT model series, ChatGPT, Codex and a developer API, and conducts research on image, speech, video and intelligent agents. After its 2025 restructuring, the nonprofit OpenAI Foundation continues to control the for-profit OpenAI Group PBC. Its growth has involved large-scale fundraising and compute partnerships, and has also been accompanied by controversies over governance, copyright, privacy and AI safety.Open the full entry, TikTok and others, of the Partnership on AI’s framework for responsible practices for synthetic media.⁠[18]

He argued for regulation focused on “intent” rather than specific algorithms, and said companies should prevent misuse through content moderation and identity verification.⁠[19]

In January 2025 Synthesia raised a $180 million Series D at a $2.1 billion valuation, with investors including NEA, WiL and Atlassian Ventures, bringing total funding to more than $330 million.⁠[20]

The company then had 400 employees and six offices, in London, New York City, Copenhagen, Amsterdam, Zurich and Munich.⁠[21]

On April 15, 2025, Synthesia announced annual recurring revenue above $100 million and a strategic investment from Adobe Ventures. Riparbelli said the team aimed to build a “generational software business.”⁠[22]

In 2025 he criticized EU AI regulation, saying: “I’m not a Brexiteer, but if we look back in 10 or 15 years, it might turn out to have saved the UK economy.” He added: “I could have moved my company to the US so many times.”⁠[23]

On October 1, 2025, he announced Synthesia 3.0, calling it “an entirely new media format,” with features including Video Agents that hold real-time conversations and Express-2 full-body avatars.⁠[24]

In October 2025, media reports stated that Synthesia had held talks with Adobe about an acquisition for about $3 billion without reaching a deal and had rejected the offer; the company declined to comment.⁠[25]

The same month, other reports stated that Synthesia had raised $200 million at a $4 billion valuation, which Synthesia did not confirm at the time.⁠[26]

On January 26, 2026, Synthesia announced a $200 million Series E at a $4 billion valuation, led by GV, with Evantic and Hedosophia as new investors.⁠[27]

Alongside the round, it arranged an employee secondary sale through Nasdaq, which acted only as a private-markets facilitator; the company did not go public. Riparbelli said: “This funding round is about scaling that vision.”⁠[28]

On June 8, 2026, during London Tech Week, Riparbelli and UK AI minister Kanishka Narayan signed a memorandum of understanding between Synthesia and the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology supporting the aim to upskill 10 million UK workers by 2030.⁠[29]

In June 2026 he attended an AI lunch during the G7 summit in Évian, France, saying “Most businesses don’t buy models,” and pledged that by 2030 Synthesia would put interactive AI video training tools in the hands of 75 million workers.⁠[30]

X: Public account: https://x.com/vriparbelli (opens in a new window)⁠[30]

LinkedInLinkedInLinkedIn is a social networking platform for professionals. It was founded in 2002 by Reid Hoffman and others, launched in 2003, and listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 2011; after Microsoft acquired it for approximately $26.2 billion in 2016, it became a wholly owned Microsoft subsidiary. Its revenue comes from membership subscriptions, advertising, and recruitment solutions.Open the full entry: Public profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/victorriparbelli/ (opens in a new window)⁠[19]

Synthesia: Official website: https://www.synthesia.io/ (opens in a new window)⁠[31]