Kaiber AI

Kaiber AI is a creative technology company that builds AI video generation tools for musicians, visual artists, and content creators. Founded in 2022 by Victor Wang and Eric Gao, the company is headquartered in Arcadia, California.^[5] Kaiber became widely known for producing AI-generated music videos for artists such as Kid Cudi and Linkin Park, and for its viral "Astral Jump" TikTok trend.^[1] The platform leverages open-source diffusion models and related AI frameworks to convert text, images, audio, and existing video footage into stylized animated content. As of 2025, Kaiber reported $2.6 million in annual revenue, a team of approximately 24 employees,^[15] and over 5 million user sign-ups.^[3]

History

Origins and Secret Garden (2022)

Kaiber's founding story begins with Victor Wang and Eric Gao, childhood friends whose mothers immigrated to the United States from Shanghai together. Wang trained as a structural engineer at UC San Diego before earning a Juris Doctor in intellectual property law from the University of California College of the Law, San Francisco, in 2015. He worked as an IP and technology transactions associate at law firms including Goodwin and Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe.^[7]

Gao, known by the stage name oksami, pursued a career as a music producer and software engineer. He worked at Lockitron from 2014 to 2015, where he developed iOS features, and then served as a software engineer at Facebook from 2017 to 2019. On Spotify, oksami has accumulated over 53,000 listeners, and his YouTube channel has nearly 58,000 subscribers.^[6]

In February 2022, Wang and Gao launched their first startup, Secret Garden, a web3 music project built during the NFT boom. The venture's first sale grossed $1.2 million, with approximately $300,000 in profit.^[5] However, the collapse of FTX in November 2022 wiped out Secret Garden's funds and forced the company to shut down.^[5]

Founding of Kaiber (Late 2022)

From the failure of Secret Garden, Wang and Gao pivoted to generative AI. The idea for Kaiber grew out of Gao's long-standing desire as a music producer to create visual content for his tracks without needing a large production budget or specialized video editing skills.^[5] In November 2022, Wang (CEO) and Gao (CTO) co-founded Kaiber alongside Jacky Lu (Head of Research) and Christine Zuniga (Head of Marketing).^[5]

The company was entirely bootstrapped from the start. Kaiber's technology built on several open-source AI projects, including AnimatedDiff, Automatic1111 (a popular Stable Diffusion web interface), ControlNet, and Deforum.^[17] On top of these foundations, Kaiber developed a proprietary layer that combined these tools into a single creative application.

Beta Period and Rapid Growth (Early 2023)

Kaiber entered a beta period that attracted significant attention through two high-profile music industry collaborations. The company created AI-powered lyric videos for all 15 tracks on Kid Cudi's Entergalactic album, which accompanied a Netflix animated special of the same name released in September 2022.^[1] In February 2023, Kaiber served as the AI production studio for Linkin Park's "Lost" music video (discussed in more detail below).^[9]

During this beta period, the "Astral Jump" trend went viral on TikTok. Users uploaded videos of themselves jumping and used Kaiber's AI tools to transform the footage into animated sequences, often set to the song "The Enemy Between My Ears" by Sons Of Charlie. This organic virality drove massive sign-up growth.

By May 2023, when Kaiber officially exited beta, the platform had accumulated over 2 million users.^[2] In its first few months of operation, the company reported seven figures in gross revenue, a notable achievement for a bootstrapped startup.

Public Launch and Mobile App (May-November 2023)

Kaiber's public launch in May 2023 introduced several new features:

• Storyboard: A prompt-to-prompt editing system that allowed users to input a series of text or image prompts, which the AI used to generate a complete video narrative.
• Gallery: A public showcase where users could share their Kaiber-generated videos, upvote others' work, and discover techniques from fellow creators.
• Improved infrastructure and user interface for faster and more reliable video generation.^[2]

In November 2023, Kaiber launched a dedicated mobile app, expanding its reach to iOS and Android users.^[1] At the time of the mobile launch, the company announced partnerships with additional music artists and reported over 5 million total sign-ups.^[3] TechCrunch covered the launch, describing Kaiber as "the generative AI creative studio behind the music videos of popular artists Kid Cudi and Linkin Park."^[1]

Superstudio and Seed Funding (October 2024)

On October 16, 2024, Kaiber launched Superstudio, a redesigned platform described as "an AI-native platform redefining how creatives interact with generative AI."^[4] Superstudio replaced the original Kaiber interface with an infinite canvas workspace that consolidated image generation, video creation, animation, and audio-reactive visuals into a unified environment.

Coinciding with the Superstudio launch, Kaiber announced its first external funding: a seed round led by EQT Ventures and Crush Ventures. The exact amount raised was not publicly disclosed.^[4] This marked a shift from the company's fully bootstrapped approach, providing additional capital for platform development and expansion.

Technology

Kaiber's technical foundation rests on several open-source machine learning projects, combined with proprietary integrations.^[17]

Core AI Frameworks

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Kaiber's proprietary layer fuses these components together, handling tasks like temporal consistency between frames, audio analysis for beat-synced visuals, and style transfer across video sequences.

Superstudio Architecture

With the launch of Superstudio in October 2024, Kaiber shifted to an aggregator model, integrating multiple third-party AI models alongside its own tools:

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This multi-model approach allows users to choose the most suitable AI engine for their specific creative task rather than being locked into a single model's capabilities.

Features and Tools

Original Kaiber Tools (2023)

Kaiber's initial product suite offered four main generation modes:

Flipbook: A frame-by-frame animation tool that produces evolving, morphing visuals with a dreamlike quality. Each frame is generated individually, creating an effect where one image gradually melts into the next. Flipbook is well suited for abstract, psychedelic, or surrealist visual styles.

Motion: A tool designed to bring static images to life with smoother, more predictable movement. Users can upload a drawing or photograph and apply motion to specific elements. For example, a character illustration can be animated to walk, gesture, or look in different directions.

Transform: Kaiber's video-to-video tool. Users upload existing video footage and provide a text prompt describing a new artistic style. Transform then repaints the original video in the specified style while preserving the underlying motion and composition. This was the tool behind many of Kaiber's music video projects, including the Linkin Park collaboration.

Audioreactivity: A feature that synchronizes generated visuals to an uploaded audio track. Kaiber's AI analyzes the beat, tempo, rhythm, and energy of a song, then produces visuals that pulse, shift, and transform in time with the music. This tool made Kaiber particularly popular among musicians and DJs who needed visual accompaniments for their tracks.

Superstudio Features (2024-Present)

Superstudio expanded and reorganized Kaiber's toolset around three core concepts:

Canvas: An open, infinite workspace where creators can generate, arrange, and refine visual assets using drag-and-drop functionality, adjustable sliders, and intuitive controls. Multiple canvases can be created for different projects.

Flows: Modular, customizable workflows that chain together multiple AI operations. Users can create repeatable creative pipelines, for example generating an image, applying a style, and then animating it in a single automated sequence.

Collections: An organizational system for managing generated assets, allowing users to group, tag, and retrieve their work efficiently.

Additional Superstudio capabilities include:

• Custom LoRA Training: Users can train custom models that mirror their personal visual style, allowing the AI to generate outputs consistent with their artistic identity.
• Beat Sync and Timeline: Tools for precise synchronization of visuals to music, including lip-sync animations.
• Graphics and Logo Restyling: AI-powered tools for remixing and reimagining existing brand assets.

Notable Projects and Collaborations

Kid Cudi, Entergalactic (2022)

Kaiber created AI-powered lyric videos for all 15 tracks on Kid Cudi's Entergalactic album. The album accompanied a Netflix animated TV special of the same name, released on September 30, 2022. This project was one of Kaiber's earliest high-profile collaborations and helped establish the company's reputation in the music industry.

Linkin Park, "Lost" Music Video (February 2023)

The music video for Linkin Park's "Lost" was one of the most prominent early examples of AI-generated content in mainstream music. "Lost" was a previously unreleased track from the Meteora sessions, included on the 20th Anniversary Edition of the album.^[8]

The video was directed by Maciej Kuciara and Emily Yang (also known as pplpleasr), co-founders of the web3 content studio Shibuya.^[9] Kaiber served as the AI production partner, with Jacky Lu (Kaiber co-founder and Head of Research) working as the principal AI artist on the project.^[10]

The production process involved several AI techniques:

• Live-action footage of the band, including Chester Bennington, was sourced from Linkin Park's Live in Texas DVD and existing music videos such as "Somewhere I Belong," "Breaking The Habit," and "Waiting For The End."^[8]
• Bespoke AI models were trained on Kaiber's platform to convert the live footage into an anime-inspired art style reminiscent of the "Breaking The Habit" music video from the original Meteora album.
• Jacky Lu built custom AI models and post-processing tooling specifically for the animation pipeline.^[10]

The video was nominated for an MTV Video Music Award and received widespread media coverage as one of the first major music productions to feature AI video generation prominently.

Grimes, Coachella 2024

Kaiber Labs developed custom AI models and visual outputs for Grimes' performance at Coachella 2024. The collaboration produced dynamic, futuristic visuals that accompanied the set. Kaiber's team worked from Grimes' creative moodboards to generate animations and visual elements tailored to her artistic direction.^[11]

Yaeji and Weirdcore, Boiler Room

Kaiber Labs co-produced animations for Yaeji's headlining set at Boiler Room in Brooklyn, New York, in collaboration with visual artist Weirdcore. The team created a series of imaginative animations and emoji-style characters for Yaeji's "Woofa-verse" visual universe, drawing inspiration from the artist's own moodboard.^[13]

Jon Rafman, Live From Earth

Kaiber Labs partnered with Canadian artist Jon Rafman and Live From Earth, a Berlin-based techno collective, for an event at Academy LA on Hollywood Boulevard. In just 10 days, the team produced over 1,000 videos and 47 gigabytes of visual content mapped across multiple screens throughout the venue.^[12] The night featured sets from DJ Gigola, Two Shell, Brutalismus 3000, and others, with visuals morphing from 1980s game aesthetics to medieval-inspired dreamscapes.

Other Artist Collaborations

Beyond these highlighted projects, several other well-known artists have used Kaiber's tools:

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Many of these artists discovered and adopted Kaiber organically rather than through formal partnerships.

Pricing

Kaiber's pricing has evolved as the platform transitioned from its original product to Superstudio.^[14]

Superstudio Pricing (Current)

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Credit Packs

Users on any plan can purchase additional credits:

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Credits from subscriptions and purchased packs are pooled in the user's account. Different actions, video lengths, and AI models consume different amounts of credits.^[14]

Competition

Kaiber operates in the competitive AI video generation market alongside several other platforms:

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Kaiber differentiates itself from these competitors primarily through its focus on music-driven workflows. The platform's audioreactivity features, beat sync tools, and deep ties to the music industry set it apart from general-purpose AI video generation tools. Its Superstudio platform also takes a multi-model aggregation approach, integrating outputs from Runway, Luma AI, Kling, and others rather than relying solely on a proprietary model.^[4]

Company Overview

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See Also

• AI Video Generation
• Stable Diffusion
• Diffusion Models
• Runway
• Pika
• Sora
• AI Art
• AI Music Generation
• Generative AI

References

1. Forristal, Lauren. "Kaiber's new app helps artists create music videos using generative AI tools." *TechCrunch*, November 2, 2023. https://techcrunch.com/2023/11/02/kaibers-new-app-helps-artists-make-music-videos-using-generative-ai-tools/ ↩
2. "Kaiber Comes Out of Beta to Enable Artist Creativity and Community." *Business Wire*, May 23, 2023. https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230523005728/en/ ↩
3. "Kaiber Fuses Generative AI Video and Music With Launch of Mobile App and Artist Partnerships." *Business Wire*, November 2, 2023. https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20231102001552/en/ ↩
4. "Kaiber Launches Superstudio, a New Creative AI Platform for Seamless Image and Video Generation." *Business Wire*, October 16, 2024. https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20241016279399/en/ ↩
5. "Kaiber's Origins: From Disaster to Disruption." *Kaiber Blog*. https://blog.kaiber.ai/blog/kaibers-origins-from-disaster-to-disruption ↩
6. "Eric Gao: The Creative & Technical Force Behind Kaiber." *Kaiber Blog*. https://blog.kaiber.ai/blog/eric-gao-the-creative-technical-force-behind-kaiber ↩
7. "Victor Wang - Founder/CEO at Kaiber." *The Org*. https://theorg.com/org/kaiber/org-chart/victor-wang ↩
8. Das, Arghyadeep. "'Lost' in the Meteora Archives: AI and Web3 help recreate the nostalgia of 2000's Linkin Park." *Medium*, February 2023. https://arghyadeep-das.medium.com/lost-in-the-meteora-archives-ai-and-web3-help-recreate-the-nostalgia-of-2000s-linkin-park-67dfea8534dc ↩
9. "Linkin Park Enlists Web3 Video Platform Shibuya and AI Startup Kaiber for New Music Video." *Metaverse Post*, February 2023. https://mpost.io/linkin-park-enlists-web3-video-platform-shibuya-and-ai-startup-kaiber-for-new-music-video/ ↩
10. "LOST." *Jacky Lu Portfolio*. https://jacky.lu/LOST ↩
11. "Grimes x Kaiber Studio Collaboration." *Kaiber Blog*. https://blog.kaiber.ai/blog/when-art-meets-algorithm-the-grimes-ai-visual-spectacle-at-coachella ↩
12. "Inside Jon Rafman's Digital Fever Dream." *Kaiber*. https://www.kaiber.ai/behind-the-spectacle-jon-rafman/ ↩
13. "New Dimensions with Weirdcore and Boiler Room." *Kaiber*. https://www.kaiber.ai/weirdcore-boiler-room/ ↩
14. "Kaiber AI Superstudio Pricing." *Kaibar AI*. https://kaibarai.com/superstudio-pricing/ ↩
15. "How Kaiber hit $2.6M revenue with a 24 person team in 2025." *Latka*. https://getlatka.com/companies/kaiber.ai ↩
16. "Kaiber - Crunchbase Company Profile & Funding." *Crunchbase*. https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/kaiber
17. "Kaiber Generative AI for Music Videos." *AI Studios Substack*. https://aistudios.substack.com/p/kaiber-making-of-a-generative-ai ↩