Panjaya.ai announced it secured $9.5 million in seed funding from Viola Ventures, R-Squared Ventures and GroundUp Ventures. The round had multiple angel investors, including Shlomi Ben Haim (JFrog), Chris Rice (Fifth Season), Guy Schory (Digital Endeavor), Ryan Floyd (Storm Ventures), Ali Behnam (Riviera Partners) and Oded Vardi (ICQ).
Panjaya, in tandem, launched BodyTalk, an AI-driven dubbing platform designed to synchronize lip and body movements seamlessly in translated videos. The company is already collaborating with industry leaders like TED and JFrog.
BodyTalk sets itself apart by integrating advanced neural voice synthesis, computer vision, and Natural Language Processing (NLP) to align lip movements, body gestures, and speech. Their holistic approach addresses a common viewer frustration with traditional dubbing methods: unnatural and disjointed translations. With video content accounting for 82% of internet traffic, the demand for culturally relevant and natural-feeling translations is higher than ever.
While several startups are focusing on AI dubbing, including Respeecher, Deepdub, and Papercup, most struggle with achieving natural synchronization across complex facial and body movements. There's also established players like Synthesia, Eleven Labs, Adobe, Heygen, and even Verbit (a Viola portfolio company), which primarily focus on lip-syncing and voice modulation. Panjaya’s BodyTalk stands out by integrating body language and nuanced gestures, enhancing authenticity and emotional impact that other platforms often miss. Especially for cultural nuances in communication.
Designed for a range of industries, from education and corporate communication to entertainment and marketing, BodyTalk offers features like automated adaptive translation, precise human-in-the-loop adjustments, and seamless integration for large-scale localization needs.
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Since its pilot, BodyTalk has significantly boosted engagement metrics, including a 115% increase in views and doubled completion rates for dubbed TED Talks.
Panjaya was founded in 2021 by Ariel Shallom and Hilik Shani, and employs a large team of AI experts to support their innovative, Generative AI technology.
