Kaltura acquires eSelf, founded by creator of Snap’s AI, in $27M deal

Kaltura, a New York-headquartered AI video level company, is acquiring eSelf.ai, an Israel-based startup down conversational avatars — AI-generated integer humans that tin speech with users — for astir $27 million. Kaltura announced contiguous that it has signed a definitive statement to get eSelf, a level supporting much than 30 languages and featuring a user-friendly workplace for creating, customizing, and deploying photorealistic integer avatars.

Co-founded successful 2023 by CEO Alan Bekker, who antecedently sold his archetypal startup, Voca, to Snap successful 2020 — and CTO Eylon Shoshan, eSelf brings heavy method expertise successful speech-to-video generation, low-latency code recognition, and surface understanding, which allows avatars to spot and respond to what’s connected a user’s screen. The eSelf co-founders volition articulation Kaltura to oversee the integration of eSelf’s exertion into the company, with each existent eSelf employees coming connected committee arsenic well.

The two-year-old startup has a tiny but beardown squad of astir 15 AI experts, Ron Yekutiel, co-founder and CEO of Kaltura, told TechCrunch. He noted that Bekker’s erstwhile institution specialized successful earthy connection processing, which helps computers recognize quality speech, and machine vision, saying it was a “very starring institution successful the country of conversational code bots. And truthful he’s an adept [in this field], and that’s what we bought,” Yekutiel said.

Kaltura offers a suite of cloud-based bundle solutions designed for precocious video applications, including a firm video portal akin to a backstage YouTube, tools for webinars and virtual events, and integrations that embed video learning into assemblage learning absorption systems, oregon platforms that signifier online coursework.

The Nasdaq-listed institution besides delivers virtual schoolroom products and end-to-end TV streaming solutions. Kaltura’s video level serves implicit 800 endeavor customers, helping them prosecute users crossed sales, marketing, lawsuit care, education, and entertainment. Its clients see tech giants similar Amazon, Oracle, Salesforce, SAP, Adobe, and IBM, arsenic good arsenic starring banks, security companies, consulting firms, pharmaceutical companies, and universities successful the U.S.

Kaltura plans to integrate eSelf.ai’s virtual cause exertion crossed its video offerings; the integration aims to alteration agents that tin listen, speak, and construe idiosyncratic screens successful existent time.

“This acquisition was truthful strategic. We were actively evaluating aggregate companies to find the close fit. We determined that they [eSelf] were best-in-class for real-time, synchronous speech — not conscionable video-on-demand lip-syncing — and that they had an awesome speech-to-text and text-to-speech exertion stack,” Yekutiel said successful an interrogation with TechCrunch.  “Beyond the technology, determination was besides a beardown taste and geographic alignment, which was captious for us.”

Why a video institution is betting connected conversational avatars

For the past 2 decades, businesses person mostly utilized video for streaming, uploading, and managing content. But that’s changing fast. Thanks to AI, videos tin present beryllium generated instantly — hyper-personalized and contextual — giving each spectator their ain customized experience, tailored precisely to what they request successful that moment, Yekutiel explained.

“We started with video, past moved to personalized video, and now, with eSelf’s technology, we’re adding human-like capabilities — faces, eyes, mouths, ears — to marque our AI agents conversational and expressive,” Yekutiel said.

Kaltura is evolving from a video level into a video-based lawsuit and worker acquisition provider, wherever video serves arsenic the interface. Unlike astir avatar companies that connection lone a “face,” it delivers the afloat workflow—avatar, intelligence, and enterprise-connected knowledge. The absorption isn’t conscionable streaming video; it’s driving measurable concern results and ROI, the CEO added.

The institution plans to motorboat standalone, embeddable agents for uses including sales, marketing, lawsuit support, and training. Target sectors see education, media and telecom, e-commerce, fiscal services, healthcare, and pharmaceuticals.

Asked astir media reports saying Kaltura was exploring a merchantability oregon merger astatine a $400 cardinal to $500 cardinal valuation, Yekutiel told TechCrunch that Kaltura has explored opportunities with a scope of companies, including imaginable “acquisitions, mergers with likewise sized firms, and connections with immoderate larger players.” But it ne'er got adjacent to a transaction similar the ones being reported, helium said.  He besides pointed to Kaltura’s caller acquisitions, including its 4th company, arsenic grounds of the company’s continued committedness to its existent strategy.

This marks Kaltura’s 4th acquisition to date. The institution acquired unreality TV solution Tvinci successful 2014, followed by Rapt Media successful 2018, and video conferencing level Newrow successful 2020. eSelf’s astir caller backing circular was its $4.5 cardinal announced successful December 2024. 

Kaltura, which went nationalist successful 2021, is astir $180 cardinal successful revenue, profitable connected an adjusted EBITDA and currency travel basis, and has astir 600 employees.