Kaltura, a prominent New York-headquartered AI video platform company, has announced its acquisition of eSelf.ai, an Israel-based startup specializing in conversational avatars. The definitive agreement, signed for approximately $27 million, integrates eSelf’s cutting-edge AI-generated digital humans, capable of real-time user interaction, into Kaltura’s extensive video offerings. This strategic move is poised to transform how businesses engage with their customers and employees through advanced video interfaces.

Co-founded in 2023 by CEO Alan Bekker, known for previously selling his startup Voca to Snap in 2020, and CTO Eylon Shoshan, eSelf.ai brings profound technical expertise to Kaltura. The two-year-old startup, with a lean team of about 15 AI experts, has developed a platform supporting over 30 languages. Its user-friendly studio facilitates the creation, customization, and deployment of photorealistic digital avatars. A key aspect of eSelf’s technology includes advanced speech-to-video generation, low-latency speech recognition, and screen understanding, allowing avatars to interpret and respond to on-screen content. Bekker and Shoshan, along with all eSelf employees, will join Kaltura to spearhead the integration efforts.

Kaltura, a Nasdaq-listed company, offers a comprehensive suite of cloud-based software solutions tailored for advanced video applications. These include a corporate video portal akin to a private YouTube, sophisticated tools for webinars and virtual events, and robust integrations that embed video learning into university learning management systems. The company also provides virtual classroom products and end-to-end TV streaming solutions. Serving over 800 enterprise customers globally, Kaltura supports major tech companies like Amazon, Oracle, Salesforce, SAP, Adobe, and IBM, alongside leading banks, insurance firms, consulting agencies, pharmaceutical companies, and universities across the U.S. The company reports approximately $180 million in revenue and is profitable on an adjusted EBITDA and cash flow basis, with around 600 employees.

Ron Yekutiel, co-founder and CEO of Kaltura, emphasized the strategic importance of this acquisition, highlighting a thorough evaluation process to find a best-in-class solution for real-time, synchronous conversation. He praised eSelf.ai's impressive speech-to-text and text-to-speech technology stack, as well as the strong cultural and geographic alignment between the companies. Kaltura intends to integrate eSelf.ai’s virtual agent technology across its entire spectrum of video offerings, enabling AI agents that can not only listen and speak but also interpret user screens in real time, thereby creating highly interactive and responsive user experiences.

For two decades, video has predominantly served for streaming, uploading, and managing content. However, Yekutiel explained that AI is rapidly transforming this landscape, allowing for the instant generation of hyper-personalized and contextual videos. This evolution facilitates custom experiences for every viewer, precisely tailored to their immediate needs. Kaltura is transitioning from being merely a video platform to a comprehensive video-based customer and employee experience provider, where video itself becomes the primary interface. By incorporating eSelf’s technology, Kaltura aims to add human-like capabilities—faces, eyes, mouths, and ears—to its AI agents, making them more conversational and expressive.

Unlike many avatar companies that offer only a "face," Kaltura seeks to deliver a full workflow comprising the avatar, its underlying intelligence, and enterprise-connected knowledge, focusing on driving measurable business results and return on investment. The company plans to introduce standalone, embeddable agents designed for a variety of applications, including sales, marketing, customer support, and training. Key target sectors for these innovative solutions span education, media and telecommunications, e-commerce, financial services, healthcare, and pharmaceuticals.

This acquisition marks Kaltura’s fourth to date, building on a history of strategic growth that includes the acquisition of cloud TV solution Tvinci in 2014, Rapt Media in 2018, and video conferencing platform Newrow in 2020. eSelf.ai had recently completed a funding round of $4.5 million in December 2024. Addressing prior media reports about Kaltura exploring a sale or merger at a high valuation, Yekutiel clarified that while the company has explored various opportunities, it never neared a transaction of the reported magnitude, reaffirming Kaltura's commitment to its current growth strategy through acquisitions like eSelf.ai.