Introduction
Victor Riparbelli is the co-founder and chief executive officer of Synthesia, an AI video communications platform that lets enterprises create training, marketing, and internal communications videos from text scripts using synthetic presenters. Riparbelli grew up in Denmark and co-founded Synthesia in London in March 2017 alongside Steffen Tjerrild, Matthias Niessner, and Lourdes Agapito, building the company into one of the most widely adopted AI video platforms for business use.
Professional background
Riparbelli studied computer science at the IT University of Copenhagen and spent a semester at Stanford University, an experience he has described as shifting his sense of ambition and scale after growing up immersed in science fiction and early online games such as World of Warcraft. He initially pursued interests in augmented and virtual reality before moving to London, where the local ecosystem for building VR-adjacent companies drew him away from a possible move to the United States. In London he met Matthias Niessner, an academic researcher who had written some of the earliest papers on AI-driven video synthesis. That meeting became the founding basis for Synthesia, combining Niessner’s research background with Riparbelli’s product and business focus, alongside fellow co-founders Steffen Tjerrild and Lourdes Agapito.
Company-building context
Under Riparbelli’s leadership, Synthesia moved from an early research-driven prototype into a commercial platform offering AI avatars, multilingual dubbing, and enterprise collaboration tools for producing video at scale. The company has raised funding from investors including Kleiner Perkins, GV, Mark Cuban, FirstMark Capital, LDV Capital, Seedcamp, and individual Stripe co-founders, and has positioned itself around learning and development, sales enablement, and internal communications use cases rather than consumer content creation. Riparbelli has described this enterprise focus as a deliberate pivot away from Synthesia’s earlier, more general-purpose video ambitions once the team saw stronger demand from corporate training and communications teams.
Public milestones
Synthesia has publicized customer relationships with organizations including Reuters, Nike, the BBC, and Amazon, and states it is used by tens of thousands of organizations worldwide. GV led Synthesia’s Series E financing round in January 2026 after first investing in its Series B in 2021, giving the firm continuity as a board observer across two funding cycles. Riparbelli has continued to speak publicly about the shift from AI video as a novelty to AI video as standard enterprise communications infrastructure, and about the responsibility that comes with operating one of the most widely used synthetic-media platforms.
Why their work matters
Synthesia is one of the most visible examples of generative media being adopted inside large enterprises rather than by individual creators, which makes Riparbelli’s work a useful reference point for readers tracking practical, workplace-oriented applications of generative AI beyond text-based copilots and chat assistants. His personal path — from a computer science degree in Copenhagen to running a London-based AI video company used by multinational brands — also illustrates how deep technical research (in this case, Niessner’s video synthesis work) can be paired with product-focused leadership to build a durable enterprise category.
Sources and references
This profile draws on Synthesia’s official about page and a GV-published interview with Riparbelli that covers his personal and professional background in detail. Customer and investor names referenced here are limited to those Synthesia and its investors have publicly disclosed.