Largo.ai, an AI-solutions company working in film, TV and advertising, has secured $7.5m investment, with Hollywood star Sylvester Stallone among the backers.
Stallone has joined the company as strategic partner and investor. Boston private equity investor Atreides Management; Thomas Tippl, former vice chairman and chief operating officer of California video games company Activision Blizzard; and Swiss private equity firm DAA Capital have also invested.
The $7.5m investment will enable Largo.ai to further its growth plans. It currently works with over 600 companies, including US studios and large agencies.
Launched in 2020 in collaboration with Swiss university, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Largo.ai is headquartered at the EPFL Innovation Park in Lausanne. Largo.ai also has a presence in Los Angeles, London and Istanbul.
The platform has analysed over 400,000 films and TV series, 950,000 talents, 59,000 scripts and 200,000 ads to train AI programmes to understand content. The programmes analyse cinematographic patterns and simulate real human behaviour, to train AI models to assess a project’s structural patterns, strengths and weaknesses, anticipated audience emotions, demographic reach and expected audience size. The platform also provides qualitative and quantitative insights into audience preferences – highlighting what they will likely enjoy or reject.
Largo.ai will host an event, ‘Pitch Perfect: Producers Showcase Projects Analysed By AI’, at this year’s Berlinale. Twenty producers will run their projects in development through Largo-ai’s intelligence platform. The company has hosted similar events at the AFM and Cannes.
“When we set out on this journey in 2020 for Largo.ai, the role of AI in filmmaking was confined to the streaming giants,” said Largo.ai co-founder and CEO, Sami Arpa. “Our mission was to level the playing field for the rest of industry, which has stayed more traditional to date. Over the last two years, as technologies like ChatGPT have become embedded in our everyday lives, the fear of AI has diminished, and its adoption curve is dramatically changing.
“People have woken up to the limitless potential of using AI as an assistance tool. It’s about creating better content in a faster, easier and less risky way.”
US president Donald Trump recently appointed Stallone as one of his Hollywood “special ambassadors”, along with Mel Gibson and Jon Voight.
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