Hippo Video
Founded 2016 · 69 employees on LinkedIn · 9 known investors
Find your way into Hippo Video
Hippo Video is a video creation platform using agentic AI to turn text, documents, and prompts into videos with lifelike avatars and multilingual voiceovers in 30+ languages. It serves sales, marketing, learning & development, and customer support teams, offering personalized video campaigns, digital twin avatars, and analytics, plus HippoRev, a variant built for hotel group sales.
Also known as Lyceum Technologies, Inc.
Founders & leadership
Hippo Video was founded in 2016 by Karthi Mariappan.
Investors · 9
Also in the syndicate · 3
Funding
SEC filings, press & company announcements$8M disclosed across 1 of 3 rounds · 2020–2023
- $8MraisedFeb 2023 · 4 sourcesSource ↗
- Undisclosed amountSeries ASep 2020
Alpha Wave Incubation (lead), Exfinity Venture Partners (lead), KAE Capital, Sequoia Capital India's Surge
Source ↗
Source: company announcements and press reports — follow each round's link for the claim.
Company profile
researched Aug 2026Hippo Video is an interactive video experience platform used by business teams to create, personalize and distribute video content at scale. The product covers video for sales outreach, marketing campaigns, internal and customer communication, support, and training, and includes a video SDK and API that allow programmatic video creation and management. Features cited by the company include personalized landing pages, teleprompter scripts, virtual backgrounds, video stitching, a template builder, markup tools, reply-with-video, timeline comments and emojis, and email reply tracking.
The platform is powered by a generative AI engine branded Humanize AI, which the company says can produce hundreds of hyper-personalized videos in a single day, and a patent-pending AI Editor that transcribes video audio so teams can edit videos through text-based editing. Its Video Flows feature provides a library of pre-built templates that let users record personal introductions and stitch them with pre-recorded segments to tailor output for each prospect. The company operates under the legal entity Lyceum Technologies, Inc., headquartered at 2035 Sunset Lake Road, Suite B-2, Newark, Delaware.
Founding story
Hippo Video was founded in 2016 by Karthi Mariappan (Sivasubramanyan), Nilam Chand Jain and Srinivasan S, three former Zoho employees. Between them the founders built more than ten products during their time at Zoho — including Zoho Recruit, Zoho People, OpManager and Studio — and bring a combined 50-plus years of experience in building, marketing and selling SaaS products. The company was set up with the stated mission of democratizing interactive video for everyday business use cases.
Business model
Hippo Video operates as a B2B SaaS platform sold to businesses, offering tiered product plans (including a free start option per its site) across sales, marketing, customer success, support and training use cases, plus video SDK and API access for programmatic video creation and management. It positions itself as an alternative to other asynchronous video tools such as Vidyard and Loom.
Revenue comes from subscription plans for its SaaS video platform, with a free tier used as an entry point and paid tiers for teams; the platform is also offered via video SDK/API for programmatic use.
Traction
The company reports worldwide customers including Genesys, Freshworks, HP, Seismic, Panasonic, DHL, British Airways, KCC and iHeartMedia, a listed company size of 51-200 employees, and $8 million raised in February 2023.
Latest developments
In February 2023 Hippo Video raised $8 million in a round led by Dallas Venture Capital, with Alpha Wave Incubation, KAE Capital and Exfinity Venture Partners participating. The company said the capital would fund expansion of customer use cases across the United States and continued product innovation, including its Humanize AI generative video engine.
▸Full profile — market position, technology, go-to-market, geography, history
Market position
Hippo Video competes in the asynchronous and interactive business video category, positioning against Vidyard and Loom, and reports customers including Genesys, Freshworks, HP, Seismic, Panasonic, DHL, British Airways, KCC and iHeartMedia. Its CEO is a member of the Forbes Technology Council; company size is listed at 51-200 employees.
The company describes itself as having the broadest feature set in the asynchronous video category, citing generative AI, personalized landing pages, teleprompter scripts, virtual backgrounds, video stitching, a template builder, markup tools, reply-with-video, timeline comments and emojis, and email reply tracking. Its patent-pending AI Editor transcribes video audio to enable faster, text-based editing without specialist video skills, and it markets itself directly as an alternative to Vidyard and Loom.
Technology
The platform combines video recording, editing and distribution with a generative AI engine called Humanize AI that produces large volumes of hyper-personalized videos, and a patent-pending AI Editor that transcribes audio to enable text-driven editing. Additional technical capabilities include video stitching, template building, personalized landing pages, virtual backgrounds, teleprompter scripts, email reply tracking, and a video API/SDK for programmatic video creation and management.
Go-to-market
Hippo Video sells to business teams through a self-serve free entry point and paid plans, supported by content marketing (blog, e-books, webinars, podcasts, video tutorials, knowledge base), free tools such as a video ROI calculator and webcam/mic tests, a partner and affiliate program, and integrations with third-party business software including Freshworks. It also targets buyers of competing tools via comparison positioning against Vidyard and Loom.
The platform is aimed at B2B organizations, particularly sales teams doing personalized outreach, plus marketing, customer success, customer support, communication and training functions; named customers include Genesys, Freshworks, HP, Seismic, Panasonic, DHL, British Airways, KCC and iHeartMedia, and the funding announcement also referenced a major European airline.
Geography
The company is headquartered in the United States, at Newark, Delaware, with branch offices in India and the UAE; its CEO is based in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India. Customers are described as worldwide, with the 2023 funding aimed at expansion across the U.S. market.
History
The company was founded in 2016 by three former Zoho colleagues and built out an interactive video platform spanning sales outreach, marketing campaigns, customer support and training. It established U.S. headquarters in Newark, Delaware, operating under the corporate entity Lyceum Technologies, Inc., with branch offices in India and the UAE. In February 2023 it raised $8 million led by Dallas Venture Capital to expand customer use cases across the United States and to further develop its product portfolio, including its generative AI capabilities.
Compiled by commissioned research from 5 cited public sources — announcements, filings, and press listed under research sources below.
Key figures
latest reportedCompany-reported or press-reported figures, each dated to when it was claimed — not independently audited.
Timeline · 1
launches, deals, and filingsHippo Video (Lyceum Technologies, Inc.) announced an $8 million funding round led by Dallas Venture Capital, with participation from Alpha Wave Incubation, KAE Capital and Exfinity Venture Partners; proceeds earmarked for expansion of customer use cases across the U.S. and product development.
$8M source ↗
Dated company events from announcements, filings, and press; legal rows summarize public dockets and regulator releases.
In the news
▸Research sources · 5
primary sources listed
- Hippo Video Raises $8 Million in Fundingthesaasnews.com · web
5 public sources were cited for this profile; the first-party ones are listed here.
Frequently asked questions
- What does Hippo Video do?
- Hippo Video is a US-headquartered SaaS platform for creating and distributing AI-personalized interactive business videos.
- Who founded Hippo Video?
- Hippo Video was founded by Karthi Mariappan in 2016.
- Who are Hippo Video's investors?
- Hippo Video's investors include Alpha Wave Global, Dallas Venture Capital, Exfinity Ventures, Kae Capital, Peak XV Partners, Sequoia Capital.
- How much funding has Hippo Video raised?
- Hippo Video has disclosed $8M raised across 1 of its 3 known rounds.