Joshua Xu
Co-founder & CEO of HeyGen
Los Angeles, CA
Find your path to Joshua
140 people in our graph share verified history with Joshua — schools, employers, funds. One of them is your warm intro.
About
Joshua Xu co-founded HeyGen in 2020 and scaled the AI avatar-video platform past $200 million in annual recurring revenue by June 2026 — while burning only about $25 million of the $74 million raised and staying cash-flow break-even, roughly $1.5 million of revenue per employee. He spent six years engineering at Snap, the last two on the ads team building AI into the camera, then founded the company in Shenzhen as Surreal with Tongji and Carnegie Mellon classmate Wayne Liang, moved it to Los Angeles, and renamed it HeyGen in 2023 as it pivoted from spokesperson clips to a full video-generation platform.
Beyond investing
- Founded
- Co-founded HeyGen — originally Surreal, then Movio — in Shenzhen in 2020 with Wayne Liang, his Tongji University classmate and fellow Carnegie Mellon master's graduate.
- More
- Spent six years at Snap, the last two on the ads team working on AI integration and an AI-augmented camera — the direct antecedent of HeyGen's product thesis. Relocated the company from Shenzhen to Los Angeles in 2022 and dissolved the Chinese entity in 2023 over investor-regulatory concerns. HeyGen went from $1M ARR in March 2023 to $200M in June 2026 — and has burned only about a third of the capital it raised. His stated product philosophy: focus on the identity and the message first, not the cinematic.
Mentioned above: the Tongji University mafia →
From published sources — common ground for a warm intro.
Experience
- HeyGenCo-Founder and CEOcurrent2020 — presentLos Angeles, California, United States
- Snapchat, Inc.Software Engineer2014 — 2020Greater Los Angeles Area
Skills & more
+7 more
LinuxComputer VisionImage ProcessingNumerical AnalysisPythonC++Embedded SystemsFrom Joshua's professional profile.
Podcasts & interviews
featuring Joshua XuCan AI replace the camera? with Joshua Xu from HeyGen
No Priors
Joshua Xu, Co-Founder & CEO at HeyGen — Interview Series
Unite.AI · unite.ai
Frequently asked questions
- Who is Joshua Xu?
- Joshua Xu co-founded HeyGen in 2020 and scaled the AI avatar-video platform past $200 million in annual recurring revenue by June 2026 — while burning only about $25 million of the $74 million raised and staying cash-flow break-even, roughly $1.5 million of revenue per employee. He spent six years engineering at Snap, the last two on the ads team building AI into the camera, then founded the company in Shenzhen as Surreal with Tongji and Carnegie Mellon classmate Wayne Liang, moved it to Los Angeles, and renamed it HeyGen in 2023 as it pivoted from spokesperson clips to a full video-generation platform.
- Where did Joshua Xu go to school?
- Joshua Xu studied at Carnegie Mellon University (Master's degree, Computer Science); Tongji University (BS, Electrical Engineering).
- What podcasts and interviews feature Joshua Xu?
- Tracked appearances include "Can AI replace the camera? with Joshua Xu from HeyGen", "Joshua Xu, Co-Founder & CEO at HeyGen — Interview Series".
Founder mafias
Carnegie Mellon University mafia481
Also came through, then founded or led a company.
+ 474 more
Tongji University mafia17
Also came through, then founded or led a company.
+ 10 more
Same school
Also attended Carnegie Mellon University632
+ 626 more
Also attended Tongji University47
+ 41 more
Shared employers
Also worked at HeyGen7
+ 1 more
Also worked at Snapchat, Inc.91
+ 85 more