Caption Maker Mirage Secures $75M to Develop AI Video Editing Models

Mirage, the company behind the popular video editing app Captions, has secured $75 million in growth funding from General Catalyst's Customer Value Fund.

In the last year, the startup has undergone major transformations, both in its product and its brand identity. It rebranded from Captions to Mirage, shifting its focus to becoming an AI lab that develops diverse models and serves sectors like advertising and marketing. The company has also trained a specialized model to optimize pacing, framing, and viewer engagement for short-form videos.

To better compete with rivals like ByteDance's CapCut and Meta's later-launched Edits, Mirage adopted a freemium model in January 2025. It now provides a comprehensive video creation suite, incorporating several features from the original Captions app, enabling businesses to produce and distribute videos at scale.

Co-founder and CEO Gaurav Misra stated that Mirage plans to develop more AI models. While he didn't detail the specific functions of the upcoming models, he indicated they would concentrate on "assembly intelligence" — essentially assembling videos from various sources and components.

Discussing Mirage's new audio model, which is designed to preserve accents in generated videos, Misra explained, "We created the audio model to address a clear gap in accent preservation, especially since many of our users are international. Accents are incredibly important. My own father's experience was a prime example. He would try using the app with his Indian accent, but it kept making him sound like he had an American accent."

According to AppFigures analytics, the Captions app has been downloaded more than 3.2 million times over the past year, generating $28.4 million in in-app revenue. Misra noted the platform has been used to create over 200 million videos and has built a strong international following, with only a quarter of its revenue originating from the United States.

Currently, Mirage's marketing suite is web-based, while Captions remains a mobile-first editing platform. The company intends to merge these two offerings to better serve small businesses seeking to produce marketing videos.

Pranav Singhvi, Managing Director of General Catalyst's CVF fund, remarked that Mirage has achieved excellent product-market fit.

"Mirage has a solid grasp of its business economics. They know precisely how to invest each dollar to yield a highly attractive return. The market they're targeting is, in a sense, limitless. They can start with creators and influencers, then leverage that foundation to expand into the enterprise segment," Singhvi told TechCrunch.

The field of AI video-generation tools for marketing is crowded. Canva has rolled out numerous marketing creation and tracking features, while other platforms like D-ID, HeyGen, Webflow, and Avataar continue to launch new models and capabilities.

Despite the competition, Singhvi expressed confidence in Mirage's market position and unit economics. "No matter what other tools exist, Mirage is clearly leading in terms of unit economics. Ultimately, that's a direct reflection of their product quality," he stated.

Mirage plans to use the new capital to accelerate its growth and expand into high-growth markets across Asia.