Digital Horizon has announced its investment in the $20 million Series A funding round for Hour One, the company allowing businesses to create human-led video automatically from text in a matter of minutes. The round was led by New York-based private equity and venture capital firm Insight Partners with participation by Galaxy Interactive, Remagine Ventures, Kindred Ventures, Semble Ventures, Cerca Partners and Eynat Guez.

Hour One’s AI platform converts real people into virtual human characters with lifelike expressiveness, in any language, which can be activated for a range of commercial and professional use cases. Following a short filming session in which a person’s likeness is captured, Hour One’s advanced AI technology generates a virtual twin that can then be deployed in a variety of roles, including a virtual receptionist, salesperson, HR representative or language teacher. Its technology is already used by companies including Berlitz, NBCUniversal, DreamWorks and Cameo.

With the rise of permanent hybrid and remote workforces, new tools are becoming increasingly necessary to preserve the human experience in virtual environments. Hour One offers an expansive vision of the future of work, allowing the humans behind the virtual characters to earn a passive income for appearances in professional and commercial content.

The funding round will be used to further enhance and streamline the process of becoming a virtual human on the platform, making it possible from any mobile device, with studio quality video creation and full automation. This can all be done using Hour One’s recently launched Reals, a first-of-its-kind self-service platform, enabling businesses to create human-led video automatically, from just text, in a matter of minutes.

Since its launch in 2019, Hour One has grown rapidly, having secured $5 million in a seed funding round in 2020.