• AI has turned a corner in Hollywood as studios adopt it for production, marketing, and visual effects.
• Elsewhere, startups are raising money to tackle every stage in the production cycle.
• Check out nine pitch decks AI startup founders shared with Business Insider.

AI is starting to transform Hollywood, whether filmmakers and audiences are ready or not.

AI has turned a corner in Hollywood as major studios increasingly adopt it to gain efficiencies in production, marketing, and visual effects.

Elsewhere, AI startups have been raising millions of dollars from venture capital firms on the promise of changing the legacy Hollywood film and TV business.

The tools they are building are being used across the production cycle. Some, like Moonvalley, are enhancing special effects. Others are promising to help with marketing, content distribution, and content discovery.

It's a challenging time for Hollywood. Budgets generally aren't what they used to be, and studios know they need to do what they can to make projects faster and cheaper. Enter AI.

Netflix and Amazon have talked about how they're using AI to pull off elaborate special effects and improve the viewing experience. Lionsgate is partnering with startup Runway to train an AI model on its library. Others in Hollywood are using AI but not talking about it.

At the same time, many are worried about tech giants using AI to appropriate their IP. Studios have taken issue with OpenAI's Sora generating videos that encroach on their copyrighted characters. Disney and Universal sued Midjourney, accusing it of using tech to rip off Star Wars, Minions, and more.

Studios must also be sensitive to talent's fears of being supplanted by AI as well as audiences' attitudes. A YouGov survey in early October found viewers were mixed on the use of AI. People were most accepting of AI being used to translate subtitles into other languages (64% for), but least accepting of the idea of AI characters replacing human actors (65% against).

How are AI founders pitching investors and Hollywood insiders on their vision of the future?

Business Insider has interviewed the founders of startups behind tools to disrupt traditional TV and filmmaking. They shared the pitch decks they used to raise capital.

Read 9 pitch decks AI startups used to raise millions to disrupt Hollywood:

Series B

• Moments Lab, a French company whose tools index studios' video libraries and create new videos from raw footage: $24 million
• Neosapience, a synthetic voice and video platform: $21.5 million

Series A

• Papercup, a startup that promised to scale dubbing: $20 million

Seed

• Wonder Studios, a UK firm that uses AI to extend IP and create original works: $12 million
• StorReel, a startup that's making short dramas with interactive AI characters: $9 million
• Metaphysic, which uses AI to make realistic deepfakes: $7.5 million
• Filmustage, which uses AI to analyze scripts and do other pre-production tasks: $1.5 million

Pre-seed

• Strada, a platform that promises to streamline the production process: $1.9 million

Other

• Fable Studio, which landed Amazon backing to let creators make their own animated shows: undisclosed

• Young tech startup founders are having a moment in the AI era.
• From teenagers to 20-somethings, these founders are raising millions.
• Take a look at the pitch decks some of these founders shared with Business Insider.

Tech is no stranger to young founders.

Steve Jobs was 21 when he cofounded Apple in 1976. Mark Zuckerberg was 19 when Facebook launched. Whitney Wolfe Herd was 25 when she unveiled Bumble.

Many of today's startup founders are still young and scrappy. And in the age of AI, they're even more empowered to barrel ahead.

Some are following the footsteps of tech titans before them and dropping out of college. Others are opting out of the undergraduate experience altogether, with a few ditching high school to pursue careers in tech.

Arlan Rakhmetzhanov, founder of AI coding startup Nozomio, told Business Insider that he dropped out of high school in Kazakhstan after getting accepted into the competitive startup accelerator program, Y Combinator (YC). At the age of 18, he raised $6.2 million for Nozomio.

Rakhmetzhanov isn't the only teenager finding success in AI. There's also Toby Brown, a UK teen who raised $1 million for his AI project. There's also Zach Yadegari, the teenage cofounder of Cal AI, a nutrition app.

College-aged founders are also building companies and raising capital, such as the Yale students behind Series AI, a new social networking startup.

The median age for YC participants is now 24 years old, compared to 30 in 2022, YC's Pete Koomen told The New York Times in August.

Business Insider has interviewed the founders of 12 startups who are 25 years old or younger and have raised millions in funding since 2024 about the pitch decks they used to impress investors.

Read 12 pitch decks founders who are 25 years old or younger used to raise millions:

Note: Founders were 25 or younger when Business Insider published the following articles.

Series A

• Posh, an events platform, raised a $22 million Series A when its founders were 23. Read the 12-page pitch deck it used.
• Clyx, a startup trying to connect people via in-person events, raised a $14 million Series A when its founder was 25. Read 22 pages of its deck.

Seed

• Ditto, an AI dating startup founded by UC Berkeley dropouts, raised $9.2 million when the founders were 23 and 24. Read its 12-page pitch deck.
• Lyra, an AI video call startup, raised a $6 million seed out of YC when its founder was 23. Read the 8-slide pitch deck it used.
• Nexad, an AI adtech startup, raised a $6 million seed after wrapping up A16z's Speedrun accelerator. Nexad's CEO was 25. Read the 10-page pitch deck.
• Orange Slice, a YC-backed sales tech platform, raised $5.3 million when its founders were 23. Read the 7-page pitch deck.
• Golpo, a generative AI video startup, raised a $4.1 million seed out of YC when its founders — who are also brothers — were 19 and 20. Read its 7-page pitch deck.
• Bluejay, an AI agent startup, raised a $4 million seed coming out of YC when its founders were 23. Read its 9-page pitch deck.
• Novoflow, an agentic AI startup building tools for medical clinics, raised $3.1 million when its founders were 18 and 19. Read its pitch deck.
• CodeFour, an AI police tech startup, was founded by two 19-year-old MIT dropouts and raised $2.7 million coming out of YC. Read the pitch deck.
• Cerca, a dating app that connects people with mutual friends, raised a $1.6 million seed when its CEO was 23. Read the 10-slide deck.

Pre-seed

• Series, an AI social networking startup, raised a $3.1 million pre-seed when its founders were 21.

This story has been updated with additional examples.