"Kaltura, a New York-headquartered AI video platform company, is acquiring eSelf.ai, an Israel-based startup behind conversational avatars - AI-generated digital humans that can talk with users - for about $27 million. Kaltura announced today that it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire eSelf, a platform supporting more than 30 languages and featuring a user-friendly studio for creating, customizing, and deploying photorealistic digital avatars."
"Co-founded in 2023 by CEO Alan Bekker, who previously sold his first startup, Voca, to Snap in 2020 - and CTO Eylon Shoshan, eSelf brings deep technical expertise in speech-to-video generation, low-latency speech recognition, and screen understanding, which allows avatars to see and respond to what's on a user's screen. The eSelf co-founders will join Kaltura to oversee the integration of eSelf's technology into the company, with all current eSelf employees coming on board as well."
"The two-year-old startup has a small but strong team of around 15 AI experts, Ron Yekutiel, co-founder and CEO of Kaltura, told TechCrunch. He noted that Bekker's former company specialized in natural language processing, which helps computers understand human speech, and computer vision, saying it was a "very leading company in the area of conversational speech bots. And so he's an expert [in this field], and that's what we bought," Yekutiel said."
Kaltura is acquiring eSelf.ai for about $27 million. eSelf.ai provides a platform supporting more than 30 languages and a studio for creating, customizing, and deploying photorealistic digital avatars. The startup was co-founded in 2023 by Alan Bekker and Eylon Shoshan and employs around 15 AI experts. eSelf's technology includes speech-to-video generation, low-latency speech recognition, and screen understanding that lets avatars see and respond to on-screen content. The eSelf co-founders and all current employees will join Kaltura to integrate the technology. Kaltura offers cloud-based video solutions, virtual classroom products, and streaming services to over 800 enterprise customers.
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