Captions

Captions is a New York-headquartered company that develops AI-based video creation and editing software delivered through a web application and iOS and Android apps. Its core product takes uploaded or recorded footage and produces a finished video, automatically cutting scenes, adding zooms, B-roll, transitions, music and stylized captions according to a chosen editing style. A chat-based editor lets users describe changes in plain language rather than performing manual timeline edits.

Beyond editing, the platform generates new footage: users can create an "AI twin" from a selfie or select from a library of digital avatars, then use prompts to change outfits, backgrounds and product inserts so the same avatar can appear across multiple videos. Supporting features include automatic captions in stylized fonts, translation and subtitling in 100+ languages, AI dubbing (29 languages per the App Store listing), eye-contact correction, background-noise removal, filler-word and pause trimming, aspect-ratio scaling, hashtag generation, an in-app teleprompter, and generation of royalty-free music and sound effects using multiple underlying models.

The company originally focused on multilingual, context-aware captioning to improve video accessibility and reach, and later broadened into a generative AI video platform centered on customizable AI avatars. Its separate Mirage Studio product was merged into Captions, with Mirage Studio subscribers migrated to Captions online; the iOS listing describes Captions as "Built by Mirage."

Founding story

Gaurav Misra (CEO) and Dwight Churchill (COO) met at Localytics in 2016, later both moved to New York City, and continued exchanging startup ideas around the growing video space. Misra was born in Boston, raised in India, studied computer science at Boston University, and worked at Lattice Engines and Snap, where he led the Design Engineering Team and worked on Snap Map; one source instead describes him as a former Microsoft engineer. Churchill worked as a software developer at Goldman Sachs — contributing to the launch of Marcus — and at Klaviyo. In early 2021 they launched a prototype 'talking-video' social network that solved the pain of manually transcribing videos and reached the top of the App Store within days while the founders self-funded it at over $10,000 per month.

Business model

Freemium software subscription. The apps are free to download and sign up for, with a limited set of features available at no cost and paid plans required to unlock full capability. The iOS listing notes in-app purchases and tiered plans (for example a Pro plan), with a priority queue that can lengthen processing wait times for Pro users after six AI projects in a month.

Recurring consumer and prosumer subscriptions sold through the web and mobile app stores, plus in-app purchases.

Traction

The company's website cites 20 million current users, 100+ supported languages and 100+ caption styles. The iOS app holds a 4.7 rating across roughly 37,000 ratings and ranked #30 in Photo & Video; the company's Google Play presence is listed under the captions.ai.videoeditor package. Contrary Research reports $100 million in total funding and 114 employees as of February 2025.

Latest developments

Mirage Studio has been merged into Captions, with former Mirage Studio subscribers accessing prior projects and actors through Captions online and gaining access to additional editing features. The product now emphasizes one-tap AI editing across a library of named editing styles, a chat-based editor, and AI twin/AI actor avatar generation with prompt-controlled outfits, backgrounds and product inserts.