Bythen

ByThen operates an AI video production platform that converts a text idea, script or source text into a finished narrated video without on-camera talent ("faceless" content). The product bundles the steps that creators would otherwise assemble from separate tools into a single guided workflow: a content profile setup covering domain, niche, language and art style; script generation from a topic or prompt; generation of a reference hero image to fix the visual style; an automated scene-by-scene storyboard; generation of video assets with synchronized AI voiceover, music and sound effects; and a multi-track editor for timing, overlays and captions before export to MP4. Videos run from 30 seconds to 30 minutes at generation, with edited projects exportable up to 60 minutes at 25 FPS and 720p (with 1080p and 4K stated as forthcoming). Supported aspect ratios are 16:9, 9:16 and 1:1, targeting YouTube, YouTube Shorts, TikTok and Instagram Reels. The platform is desktop-browser based (Chrome primary, Edge and Safari supported), with no mobile app or offline mode.

The company was founded in 2024 in Indonesia with an earlier positioning around ownable digital characters for virtual creators. In that iteration, users created AI-powered digital twins called "Bytes" that could autonomously generate content, reply to followers by video, join video calls on platforms such as Zoom and Google Meet, and live stream on YouTube and Twitch. That product was described as turning 2D NFTs into interactive 3D avatars using proprietary motion capture and an AI fine-tuning engine referred to as "dojo," and it operated on a revenue-sharing model that channelled earnings back to the creator community. An NFT collection, "bythen chip" (888 items on Ethereum, first listed May 2024), is associated with the bythen account on OpenSea.

Founding story

Bythen was founded in 2024 by a team that had worked together for roughly 16 years, having previously built Magnivate (acquired by WPP in 2012, later Mirum Agency) and Bridestory (acquired by Tokopedia in 2019). Co-founder and CEO Kevin Mintaraga, a former competitive Counter-Strike player in Indonesia who later served as Tokopedia's Chief Marketing Officer, founded Magnivate in March 2008 after working at a graphic design agency, then started Bridestory out of his own wedding-planning experience. He traced the idea for Bythen to observations at Tokopedia: a 2020 BTS partnership highlighted Gen Z's preference for avatars over real identities on social media, and a 2023 partnership with a VTuber proved more efficient and cost-effective for content generation than traditional influencer collaborations. As a crypto investor since 2021 holding blue-chip NFTs, he saw that such assets had limited utility beyond profile pictures, and the emergence of large language models suggested they could become dynamic AI companions. The team framed the opportunity around a shift toward pseudonymous social personas and younger users' preferences for privacy, expression and identities detached from physical attributes.

Business model

The current product is sold as self-serve software with a limited free plan alongside paid subscription tiers. Subscriptions are credit-based: higher tiers provide more monthly credits at a lower cost per credit, longer video runtime limits, expanded project storage, premium generation features and cheaper credit top-up packages. In its earlier virtual-creator positioning, the company described a revenue-sharing model that channelled earnings to its creator community.

Subscription tiers with monthly credit allowances plus paid credit top-up packages, layered on a limited free tier; earlier positioning also included revenue sharing with creators.

Traction

The company stated a target of onboarding 15,000 virtual influencers in 2025. The associated "bythen chip" NFT collection of 888 items on Ethereum shows $7.1 million in total secondary volume and 425 unique owners on OpenSea.

Latest developments

In January 2025 the company announced the close of a $5 million seed round led by Vector Inc. and Skystar Capital. Its website now markets ByThen as an AI video producer for faceless content, with a six-step production workflow, a built-in multi-track editor, free and paid subscription plans, and a native MCP server allowing AI agents to generate and edit video programmatically.