French AI Video Startup Arcads.ai Raises $16M Seed Round to Expand US Operations

French AI video generation startup Arcads.ai announced a $16 million seed round led by European investment firm Eurazeo, with participation from Alpha Intelligence Capital and the Sequoia Scout program. The funding will accelerate US expansion for the already-profitable company that serves over 6,000 clients generating approximately 100,000 video assets monthly.

Arcads.ai enables marketing teams to produce social media videos using AI-generated actors and automated production workflows. The platform supports UGC-style content with AI actors, product demonstration videos, fashion try-on content, and unboxing videos across more than 35 languages. This multilingual capability allows brands to localize campaigns without managing international production teams.

Current clients span app studios, consumer brands, marketing agencies, and individual founders. More than half of Arcads.ai's user base operates from the United States, driving the company's decision to establish a San Francisco office.

Dylan Fournier and Romain Torres founded Arcads.ai in 2024 after experiencing video production constraints firsthand. The duo previously launched a marketing agency followed by a mobile app studio that achieved multiple successful launches. Their app studio's growth created sustained demand for marketing videos across formats, languages, and platforms—demand that traditional production couldn't meet economically.

"We created Arcads.ai to break down the barriers that exist when marketing teams need to quickly and affordably create the many videos needed to promote their products," Fournier said. "With Arcads.ai, we are making this process accessible, simple, and iterative: test, adjust, repeat. The results already speak for themselves—we're already profitable and this funding will give us the means to accelerate our development and support the growth of our user base, particularly in the United States."

The company achieved profitability within months of launching with just seven employees, demonstrating strong unit economics before raising institutional capital. This path contrasts with many AI startups that prioritize growth over financial sustainability.

Digital video advertising spending in the United States reached nearly $63 billion in 2024 and is projected to exceed $72 billion in 2025, driven by short-form video consumption across social platforms. Marketing teams face pressure to produce increasing volumes of video content while maintaining quality and managing costs.

Traditional video production requires booking actors, scheduling shoots, coordinating post-production, and managing localization for international markets. These workflows create bottlenecks that prevent rapid testing and iteration. AI-powered video generation eliminates these constraints, enabling marketing teams to test multiple creative variations quickly.

Thomas Turelier, Managing Director of Venture Digital at Eurazeo, explained the investment thesis: "In almost all the markets we follow, the battle is now played out in distribution, making one's brand and product known. Arcads.ai gives marketing teams a structural advantage in this competition for attention, and the international traction we are observing confirms it. We are happy to accompany Arcads.ai in this new stage."

The seed funding will support three priorities: expanding platform capabilities to support additional video formats and use cases, strengthening international presence with the San Francisco office opening, and scaling the team to support growing customer demand. The company targets enterprise customers while maintaining accessibility for smaller businesses and individual creators.

Arcads.ai competes in a rapidly evolving generative AI video market alongside players like Synthesia, HeyGen, and emerging capabilities from major AI labs. Differentiation centers on video quality, production speed, and breadth of supported formats rather than any single technical breakthrough.