Hera

Hera (legal name given in one directory listing as Hera Video, Inc.) develops an AI motion design tool that generates animated graphics and product videos from plain-English descriptions. Users describe the motion graphic they want, then refine the result either by prompting further changes or through on-canvas, manual editing of individual details. The product also lets users start from animations created by other users and customize them, and supports brand kits so that generated animations remain consistent with a customer's visual identity. On its website, Hera positions the tool around product launch content, offering conversion of a website URL or a prompt into launch-ready video.

The company frames its value proposition against Adobe After Effects, which it describes as the only established option for professional motion graphics and one that takes years to master. Based on conversations with 130 video teams — spanning YouTube channels, marketing agencies and corporates — the founders concluded that roughly 95% of time spent on motion graphics is manual tool operation rather than creative work, and built Hera to automate that portion while leaving creative direction to the user. The stated effect is reducing five-hour projects to five-minute tasks.

In addition to the self-serve application at app.hera.video, the site advertises "Hera Studio," a service in which a customer submits a brief and Hera delivers a finished video within 48 hours.

Founding story

Co-founder Peter Tribelhorn previously acquired and managed large YouTube channels at Lunar X, including Economics Explained and The Game Theorists, with a combined 30 million-plus subscribers, and produced more than 240 videos. In that role he spent thousands of dollars per week hiring motion designers and concluded that motion design work consisted largely of operating complex software rather than creative decision-making. Founder Chia-Lun Wu was an early engineer at Vyond, where he built Vyond Studio, a drag-and-drop online video editor described as used by 20,000 businesses, and was the first engineer/employee at Flagright (YC W22), where he built and scaled core infrastructure; he holds an MS in Computer Science from National Taiwan University and has worked in software engineering since 2016. The two had been friends for five years before deciding to build a company together.

Business model

Hera sells a self-serve AI motion design application (app.hera.video) to video creators and marketing teams, and additionally offers a done-for-you production service, Hera Studio, in which the company produces a video from a customer brief within 48 hours. Access to the self-serve product has been gated by a waitlist, with skip-the-waitlist links used for specific audiences such as the YC community.

The sources indicate the company generates revenue and reported doubling it monthly as of its YC listing, but do not specify pricing or packaging.

Traction

Reported traction includes 3,000 users and more than 15,000 animations in the first week after the creator launch, more than 50,000 animations created to date, over 100,000 waitlist signups within eight weeks of the May 2025 launch, and monthly doubling of revenue.

Latest developments

The company website promotes a newly added offering, Hera Studio, providing custom video production from a customer brief within 48 hours, alongside the core prompt-to-video product. Hera was also recruiting founding software, AI and product design roles in Berlin and remotely at the time of the YC listing.