Mirage, the creator of the video editing app Captions, has secured $75 million in growth financing from General Catalyst’s Customer Value Fund (CVF).
Over the last year, the startup has undergone major transformations regarding its product and corporate identity. It has rebranded from Captions to Mirage to establish itself as an AI lab that develops various models and serves sectors like advertising and marketing. A specific model for pacing, framing, and attention dynamics in short videos has been trained.
The company transitioned to a freemium model in January 2025 to better compete with apps like ByteDance’s CapCut and Meta’s Edits, introduced later in the year. It now provides a video creation suite, incorporating some features from Captions, enabling companies to produce and distribute videos in large volumes.
Mirage’s co-founder and CEO Gaurav Misra stated that the company plans to develop more models, though he did not elaborate on their functions, noting only that they would emphasize “assembly intelligence” — integrating various sources and components into a video.
On discussing Mirage’s new audio model, which claims to preserve accents in generated videos, Misra said, “The reason for the audio model was that we noticed a gap in accents because many of our users are international. Accents are very important. My own dad’s example: he used the app, and it made words spoken in an Indian accent sound American.”
AppFigures’ data reveals Captions were downloaded over 3.2 million times in the past 365 days, earning $28.4 million in in-app revenue. Misra mentioned the platform has produced over 200 million videos, attracting an international audience, with only 25% of its revenue from the U.S.
Currently, Mirage’s marketing suite is accessible on the web, while Captions offer a mostly mobile-first editing suite. The company plans to merge these platforms to better serve small businesses creating marketing videos.
Pranav Singhvi, managing director of General Catalyst’s CVF fund, commented on Mirage’s excellent product-market fit.
“Mirage’s business equation is very well understood. They know how to spend a dollar and achieve a significant ROI. If you consider the market they’re targeting, it’s essentially an infinite total addressable market. Starting in the creator and influencer world can be a means to sell to enterprises,” Singhvi told TechCrunch.
Numerous companies are developing AI video-generation pipelines for marketing. Canva has introduced several marketing creation and tracking tools, and platforms like D-ID, HeyGen, Webflow, and Avataar have released new models and features.
Singhvi remains confident about Mirage’s stance and unit economics. “No matter the other tools available, Mirage stands out from a unit economics perspective. Ultimately, this is a testament to their product,” he said.
Mirage intends to utilize the new capital to drive growth and expand in high-growth Asian markets.