6 days ago
AI entertainment startup Dashverse raises $13 million from Peak XV Partners, Z47, others
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The days of streaming only movies and television series are over. With the rise of short-form video content in the past two years, there has been an increase in episodic content in short videos on platforms such as YouTube, Instagram and TikTok. These are 30-second to one-minute-long episodes of short stories, viewed while scrolling through your day. Dashverse , a Bengaluru- and San Francisco-based company, is tapping into this trend with its artificial intelligence (AI) platform, Frameo AI , which helps creators craft video-based stories using its 'vibe creation' tool, an approach similar to vibe coding. The company's mobile app, DashReels, serves as the showcase for this Tuesday, the company announced that it has secured $13 million in a funding round, marking the largest Series A raised in the mobile-first entertainment sector. The round was led by Peak XV Partners, with existing investors Z47 (formerly Matrix Partners India) and Stellaris Venture Partners also has positioned itself as a full-stack AI entertainment company, focusing on platforms for mobile-first storytelling. The fresh capital will be used to enhance its core AI technologies as well as fueling product company's mission is to propel the next wave of AI-generated narrative experiences, catering to the exploding appetite for bite-sized digital stories. The company's mobile application for this serialised content, DashReels, has crossed five million users in a little under two months, cofounder and CEO Sanidhya Narain told ET. In six to eight months, it aims to cross the 100-million user a web application, can create a story from scratch as well, but Narain said the company wants to give a platform to stories of creators. "We still need human creativity in this process, so you need your own story. Our platform will help you convert it into a video, with AI-generated characters, in whichever setting you deem fit. This platform essentially helps creators become a one-person production studio," he only supporting the Hindi language, the app will launch support for Tamil and Telugu this month, and plans to add 10 languages in the coming runs on a subscription model and shares revenue with creators, similar to platforms such as YouTube, based on the number of views these videos signature offering aims to empower creators to experiment with new forms of storytelling, blurring the lines between traditional content production and generative AI-driven visual narratives. This is to push influencers and digital storytellers to build audiences online, making episodic video content more personal, immersive, and scalable. The company is also targeting book authors, screenplay writers and storytellers whose writing never sees the light of day.'The creator economy is undergoing a seismic shift driven by generative AI , and Dashverse is at the very heart of this transformation,' said Peak XV's Abhishek Mohan in a statement. 'Their unique approach, combining proprietary AI with a deep understanding of storytelling and creator workflows, sets them apart."Dashverse has a team of 25 with the majority based in Bengaluru."We first aim to scale in India, but this has global applications. So, with this funding, we will build research and development and build out our AI stack. And then we have our eyes on expansion as well," Narain added.
