companies

Pika Labs

Palo Alto-based AI video generation startup founded by former Stanford AI PhD students, known for text-to-video generation and its viral Pikaffects tools.

Pika (Pika Labs) was founded in April 2023 in Palo Alto, California, by Demi Guo and Chenlin Meng, former Stanford University AI PhD students, together with Karli Chen as a third co-founder and founding engineer. The company's platform generates and edits short videos from text and image prompts, and later introduced "Pikaffects," a set of stylized video transformation effects that gained wide social media attention. Pika raised $55 million in a 2023 seed round and an $80 million Series B round in June 2024, reaching a reported valuation of roughly $470 million to $900 million depending on the source and date, with investors including Lightspeed Venture Partners, Spark Capital, and Greycroft. Demi Guo serves as CEO. The company has remained comparatively small, with roughly 100 employees as of early 2026, amid reports of acquisition interest from larger technology companies.

Founded

2023

Headquarters

Palo Alto, United States

Sector

applications