Singapore-based video generation startup PixVerse has announced the closure of its Series C extension, securing a total of $439 million in the round. The company plans to use these funds to expand its world model offerings and reach customers in various regions worldwide. The initial Series C round was completed in March, led by CDH Investments. Although the exact funding amount wasn't disclosed, Bloomberg reported it to be around $300 million. Investors in the extension round include Alibaba, Lollapalooza Capital, Ivy Capital, Grand Mount Capital, Eastern Bell Capital, Mirae Asset, BlueFocus, and CloudAlpha, alongside returning investors iGlobe Partners and OCBC’s LionX Ventures.

Founded in 2023 by Wang Changhu and Jaden Xie, PixVerse brings together notable expertise. Changhu previously worked at ByteDance on computer vision, while Xie served as an executive director at investment firm Lighthouse Capital. The company offers several models: a V-Series video model for consumer and API use, a C-Series video model tailored for professional film and commercial workflows, and an R-Series of world models for game development and world building, released earlier this year. Through its platform, users can generate videos in up to 4K resolution with integrated audio.

The startup reports that its consumer product has over 150 million registered users and more than 15 million monthly active users. While the company declined to specify how many are paying customers, it offers a competitive rate of $4.80 per minute of generation for image-to-video. Xie believes that despite the massive opportunity in video generation, only a few companies are making meaningful progress. "OpenAI exited the business when they shut down Sora 2. Other companies like Meta and Tencent are not able to create high-quality video models," he noted. He sees equal potential in both consumer and enterprise markets, as users create videos for fun and consume AI-generated short content, while businesses leverage video generation for creative, learning, and marketing purposes.

Xie emphasizes that PixVerse's core strength lies in data labeling rather than the data itself. "We think the key difference is not in data, but how you label it, because data is available everywhere. My co-founder worked at ByteDance, where he built core visual understanding technology behind TikTok using AI. Using this tech, TikTok was able to label data accurately, and build a strong recommendation algorithm. This experience comes in handy when building a video generation platform," he explained.

The company has ambitious plans for this year. It aims to expand its enterprise outreach globally and already has a deal with investor Alibaba to deploy video generation features. On the product front, PixVerse plans to launch a new V-series model for video generation and release an updated version of its world model. With 150 employees across offices in Singapore, Beijing, and Shanghai, the startup intends to hire more researchers and go-to-market personnel using the new funding.

Despite its confidence, the video generation market is becoming increasingly competitive. Asian players include ByteDance with its Seedance model, former Tencent AI head Dr. Wei Liu’s Video Rebirth, and Kling AI. In the West, competitors like Midjourney, Runway, and Luma are active. Additionally, multiple companies, including those led by Yann LeCun and Fei-Fei Li, are developing world models.