Product teams often have large amounts of screen recordings and screenshots stored that go unused. Producing videos using these screen recordings was time consuming and expensive. That's why two former Microsoft employees started building Lica, an AI tool that makes it easy to create tutorials and product videos from screenshots and screen recordings.
The startup was founded in 2023 by Priyaa Kalyanaraman, who has worked as a product manager at Microsoft, Snap, and Waymo, and Purvanshi Mehta, who previously worked as a data scientist and project manager at Microsoft.
Kalyanaraman, who has worked on these products, including adding AI capabilities to PowerPoint and Microsoft Designer, said he saw a lot of demand from business users to add AI assistants to their business generation.
“I wanted to start something, to provide the public with a design agency that would help them communicate better. But since I had a visa, I didn't want to start my own company. “We created a small demo at the hackathon and posted it on Twitter (now X), and Amjad Maead from Replit saw it and was interested,” Kalyanaraman said. .
Image credit: Rika
Mehta was also building his own project to personalize content. A mutual friend introduced the two of us. I decided to build a tool for video storytelling because I felt the tools were flashy and ineffective.
Lica has raised $4 million in a seed round led by Accel, led by South Park Commons, Village Global, Replit CEO Amjad Massad, former a16z general partner Balaji Srinivasan, and Replit President Michele Srinivasan. Angels such as Mr. Katasta also participated.
Aditya Agarwal, a managing partner at SouthPark Commons who has worked at companies like Dropbox and Meta, said traditionally people created a combination of documents and slides to communicate their ideas. . On the other hand, video development was expensive and time-consuming. He believes Rika can fill that gap.
“Most of the time, we create reports using a combination of documents and slides, because these are deliverables that anyone in an organization can create. To produce a video, we use a combination of documents and slides to create a report. I went to the store. I don't make videos for a lot of internal and external communication because it's not feasible,” Agarwal said.
The two started by developing a model that could process any kind of multimodal input and predict a sequence of actions and product-specific media accordingly. However, the company decided to focus on video first and target prosumers and teams such as product, customer success, and sales.
This startup has tools that help you create product videos and instructions from screen recordings. Lica can automatically add transitions, background music, and effects. The company's editing tools give you the freedom to manually add some parts, such as text for narration. You can also guide your AI assistant through prompts to give your videos a specific voice, such as “Create a tutorial-style video in Gen Z language.”
Once the video is generated, you can also edit the voiceover tone, captions, language, style, music, and more through prompts.
“Many people don't have the vocabulary to express what they want in a video, so it takes many time-consuming iterations to get the final video. We provide an AI assistant that works like this and does the work quickly,” Kalyanaraman said.
Image credit: Rika
The founders noted that the tool also has a good understanding of design aesthetics. If a user enters an unusual design or color choice, this tool will make sure the final product looks pleasant, not unpleasant.
Mehta said there are two different models of AI assistants. One is the orchestrator, which puts together the different parts of the presentation, such as choosing the best audio for the narration, and the other is the layout generator, which manages how different parts of the screen recording and text appear. screen. The company uses a combination of open and closed source models for other parts, such as audio generation.
Lica currently has a free tier where you can create 10 videos with a limit of 3 minutes per video, and 3 downloads per month. For $49 a month, you can generate unlimited 10-minute videos, get 10 downloads, and access branded templates.
The startup's current focus is on product and tutorial videos, but in the coming months Lica will tune its AI assistant for more formats of video, including marketing, presentations, social media, and investor pitches. I plan to.
Lica may not have any direct competitors, but businesses and startups typically use everything from Zoom calls to screen recordings to create rudimentary videos, then polish them with apps like Loom. Use tools. AI-centric startups like D-ID and Syenthesia use avatars for tutorial videos and internal messaging.
Accel's Sameer Gandhi believes the startup has the right mix of team quality and product approach.
“Lica differentiates itself by combining advanced AI capabilities and intuitive design in one platform, allowing users to maintain creative control while benefiting from AI-assisted features. Team Generation “Coupled with our background in AI and product development, we believe we are uniquely positioned to address key market needs that other solutions have not yet fully captured,” he told TechCrunch via email.