Mirage raises $75M to build AI video models and crack Asian markets
What's the deal? Mirage, the AI lab behind video editing app Captions, has raised $75M in growth financing from General Catalyst's Customer Value Fund. The New York-based startup plans to use the capital to build new AI models and expand into high-growth Asian markets.
The company rebranded from Captions to Mirage in 2025 to signal a broader ambition: becoming an AI lab serving not just individual creators, but also advertising and marketing teams. It has already trained a model focused on pacing, framing, and attention dynamics in short-form video.
Its next focus is what CEO Gaurav MisraDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → calls "assembly intelligence" — AI that can stitch together a video from disparate sources and components. Mirage has also developed an audio model it says can preserve users' accents in generated content, addressing a gap it noticed among its largely international user base.
Why now? Mirage switched to a freemium model in January 2025 to better compete with ByteDance's CapCut and Meta's Edits. More than 200 million videos have been created on the platform, with 75% of revenue coming from outside the US.
The company is also looking to merge its mobile-first Captions app with its web-based marketing suite, targeting small businesses that need to produce video at scale.
What could go wrong? The AI video space is crowded and getting more so. Canva, HeyGen, D-ID, Webflow, and Avataar are all pushing new models and features aimed at the same marketing budgets. Differentiation on product alone may not be enough as better-resourced incumbents close the gap.
The signal: Mirage's raise reflects a broader shift in how AI video tools are being positioned — less as creative toys, more as business infrastructure. General Catalyst's Pranav SinghviDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → described the company's total addressable market as "infinite," spanning creators, influencers, and enterprises.
The real bet here isn't on any single model; it's on whether a vertically integrated AI video stack can own end-to-end content production for the global small business market.
Source:
TechCrunch
Image credit:
Mirage
J.V.
