The AI video creation platform — now Mirage, the AI research lab for video
HQ: New York, NY, United States | Founded: 2021 | Employees: 80–150 (est. 2026) | Stage: Growth ($500M valuation + $75M CVF, 2026) | Website: https://www.captions.ai
Captions was founded in 2021 in New York by Gaurav Misra (CEO, ex-Microsoft Design, Snap) and Dwight Churchill (COO). The company builds Captions — a mobile/desktop AI video creation app used by 20M creators for captions, editing, eye contact, dubbing, and generative models — and Mirage, the underlying AI research lab building proprietary video foundation models (mirrored strategy to Pika/Ideogram). It raised early rounds then $60M Series C in Jul 2024 led by Index Ventures at a $500M valuation with Kleiner Perkins, a16z, Sequoia joining (BusinessWire/Pymnts), bringing total then to $100M. In Mar 2026 Mirage raised $75M growth financing from General Catalyst Customer Value Fund to invest $100M in NYC AI video research — total $175M+.
Captions won the creator pocket studio: Gaurav Misra and Dwight Churchill built NYC-based Mirage (the research lab) and Captions (the app) — from auto-captions for social to AI-eye-contact, dubbing and now generative video. $60M Series C at $500M (Jul 2024, Index with Kleiner/a16z/Sequoia) plus $75M growth in Mar 2026 from General Catalyst Customer Value Fund pushed total past $175M for 20M creators. The bet is lab-owned models (like Hedra/Pika) beats wrapper fate; the trap is CapCut/Adobe bundling AI editing free.
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