Pinscreen
2 known investors
Los Angeles AI company and VFX studio building photorealistic virtual avatars and AI-driven face replacement for film and TV.
Also known as Pinscreen, Inc.
Founders & leadership
Investors · 2
Company profile
researched Aug 2026Pinscreen is an American artificial intelligence company and visual effects studio headquartered in Los Angeles, California, with a branch in Abu Dhabi. It develops generative AI technologies for film production and interactive experiences, offering AI lip sync, face reenactment, face swaps, de-aging, and avatar digitization. The company originally focused on the creation of photorealistic virtual avatars built with machine learning, including technology that generates a 3D avatar of a person — hair included — from a single photograph, and later pivoted toward AI-based visual effects for film and television production.
Alongside avatar creation, Pinscreen provides human digitization and performance capture technologies for full-body avatar creation, customization, and animation, as well as full-stack virtual human assistants that users can interact with by voice or text. Its avatars are described as running in the cloud and accessible through a web browser or mobile device, and its neural rendering system, PaGAN, is used to generate virtual humans. The team is composed of graphics, vision, and AI researchers, engineers, game designers, and VFX artists, with publications at conferences including ACM SIGGRAPH and IEEE CVPR.
Founding story
Pinscreen was founded in 2015 in Los Angeles by Hao Li, a German computer scientist working in computer graphics, computer vision, and machine learning. At the time of founding, Li was a faculty member in the computer science department at the University of Southern California, having previously joined Industrial Light & Magic/Lucasfilm in 2012 as a research lead on real-time performance capture and spent a summer in 2014 as a visiting professor at Weta Digital working on facial tracking and hair digitization. Li had received the MIT Technology Review TR35 Award in 2013 for work in non-rigid shape registration, human digitization, and real-time facial performance capture.
Business model
Pinscreen operates as a technology developer and VFX studio, providing end-to-end AI visual effects and avatar digitization capabilities to film studios, platforms, and technology companies, and offering virtual human/virtual assistant solutions delivered from the cloud via web browsers and mobile devices.
Traction
Reported client engagements with major studios and technology companies, demonstrations at the World Economic Forum in Davos and at SIGGRAPH 2020, delivery of AI lip sync for a complete feature film, and participation in the NVIDIA Inception Program and Epic MegaGrants. Third-party estimates place annual revenue in the $1M–$10M range with roughly 11–16 employees.
▸Full profile — market position, technology, go-to-market, geography, history, risks & controversies
Market position
Pinscreen positions itself as a developer of advanced photorealistic AI-driven virtual avatars and AI visual effects for film production, described as the first to demonstrate AI lip sync for a complete feature film. It participates in the NVIDIA Inception Program and has received an Epic MegaGrant.
The company's differentiation rests on neural rendering (PaGAN) for photorealistic virtual humans, the ability to generate a full 3D avatar including hair from a single photograph, real-time deepfake and performance-capture capability, and a research team publishing at top graphics and vision conferences.
Technology
The company combines deep learning with computer graphics for 3D human digitization, facial animation, and neural rendering. Its PaGAN neural rendering technology is used to generate virtual humans, and it has demonstrated real-time deepfake capability, AI lip sync, face reenactment, face swaps, and de-aging. It also provides human digitization and performance capture for full-body avatar creation, customization, and animation, with a full-stack AI pipeline supporting voice- and text-based interaction with cloud-hosted avatars. Research from the team has been published at ACM SIGGRAPH and IEEE CVPR.
Go-to-market
Film and television studios, streaming platforms, technology companies, and government research organizations; reported clients include Netflix, Amazon Studios, Miramax, Warner Bros, Apple, Google, Adobe, and DARPA.
Geography
Headquarters in Los Angeles, California, with a branch office in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.
History
Founded in 2015 as an AI startup specializing in photorealistic virtual avatars generated with machine learning, Pinscreen introduced technology capable of producing realistic 3D avatars, including hair, from a single photograph, and worked on deep neural networks that infer photorealistic faces and expressions. Its technologies were exhibited at premier events including the World Economic Forum in Davos and the Annual Meeting of the New Champions 2019 in Dalian, and real-time deepfake work was shown at SIGGRAPH 2020. The company later pivoted toward AI-based visual effects — face replacement, de-aging, facial reenactment, and lip synchronization — for film and television production, and opened a branch in Abu Dhabi, where founder Hao Li also holds a professorship at the Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence.
Risks & controversies
The company's core capability — easily generated and manipulated photorealistic digital faces — is closely tied to the deepfake debate; founder Hao Li has publicly raised awareness of the threat of manipulated videos and in 2019 co-released research with media forensics expert Hany Farid on a method for detecting deepfakes.
Compiled by commissioned research from 6 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 · 5
launches, deals, and filingsThe company is reported as a participant in the NVIDIA Inception Program and a recipient of recognition through Epic MegaGrants.
Pinscreen operates a branch in Abu Dhabi; founder Hao Li was appointed associate professor of computer vision at the Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence in Abu Dhabi in 2022.
Pinscreen demonstrated real-time deepfake technology at the World Economic Forum in Davos and at SIGGRAPH 2020.
Deep neural networks inferring photorealistic faces and expressions were showcased at the World Economic Forum's 2019 Annual Meeting of the New Champions in Dalian.
Pinscreen introduced technology able to generate a realistic 3D avatar of a person, including hair, from a single photograph.
Dated company events from announcements, filings, and press; legal rows summarize public dockets and regulator releases.
▸Research sources · 6
primary sources listed
6 public sources were cited for this profile; the first-party ones are listed here.
Frequently asked questions
- What does Pinscreen do?
- Los Angeles AI company and VFX studio building photorealistic virtual avatars and AI-driven face replacement for film and TV.
- Who founded Pinscreen?
- Pinscreen was founded by Hao Li.
- Who are Pinscreen's investors?
- Pinscreen's investors include Colopl Next, Lux Capital.