Simi is an AI explainer studio that turns a single prompt, document, or workflow into a narrated whiteboard-style video in seconds. It writes the script, draws the illustrations, animates them, adds narration, and hands you a finished video , with output across 80+ languages, so anyone can explain anything clearly . It is aimed at students, course creators, customer training teams, and product and support orgs that need to turn dense text into something a viewer can actually follow.
Behind Simi, Lamina Labs is building what it calls near-real-time video infrastructure for LLMs, meant to be called from apps, APIs, or agent frameworks so that any model can return a video when a text answer is not enough. It generates anything from a minute to an hour in one shot, speaks 80+ languages so you write once and localize everywhere, and is built to plug in . The pitch is that most generative video today targets cinematic clips, while Lamina is optimizing for useful, structured explanations tied to a specific document, concept, or workflow.
The company was founded by Sudip Rokaya and Kartikesh Mishra, two Nepali MIT students who founded Lamina Labs in San Francisco , and it is a current Y Combinator company. This launch marks a $4.8M round led by Foundation Capital with participation from Link Ventures and Y Combinator, alongside the public release of Simi as the first product built on the underlying infrastructure.
Comments (8)
Sign in to join the discussion.
P
Priya RamaswamyJul 31, 2026
20 seconds for a one-minute narrated video in 80+ languages is the kind of claim that either eats Loom's lunch or falls apart at scale. Watching this one closely.
T
Tomás K.Jul 31, 2026
The tweet buries the lede by putting the raise before the product. Simi in the first line, dollars in the last, would've hit harder.
K
kerningpoliceJul 31, 2026
The thumbnail on the demo has the title text fighting the narrator's face for real estate. Push the caption down 40px and let Simi breathe.
I
Ifeoluwa O.Jul 31, 2026
ok wait, 80+ languages out the gate? that's the moat if the pronunciation doesn't sound like a GPS from 2011.
H
Haruki TanabeJul 31, 2026
Curious what the actual pipeline looks like under the hood. Are we talking diffusion for scenes plus a TTS stack, or something more end-to-end?
C
Chidi OkerekeJul 31, 2026
Anyone hiring inference infra folks over there? I've got a candidate who's been vibe-optimizing video pipelines and needs a real problem.
D
Dilnoza A.Jul 31, 2026
Explainer videos are a feature graveyard. What's the retention story past week two when the novelty wears off?
M
Malena F.Jul 31, 2026
Tried it. Onboarding asked me for a prompt before telling me what Simi actually was. Flip those two screens and the aha moment lands twice as fast.
Work With Us
Book an intro call to explore our suite of services. We might have a waitlist.
Lamina Labs
Building the visualization layer for AI
Building the visualization layer for AI
Tags
TLVC Rating
Community Rating
No ratings yet
to rate this launch.
Simi is an AI explainer studio that turns a single prompt, document, or workflow into a narrated whiteboard-style video in seconds. It writes the script, draws the illustrations, animates them, adds narration, and hands you a finished video , with output across 80+ languages, so anyone can explain anything clearly . It is aimed at students, course creators, customer training teams, and product and support orgs that need to turn dense text into something a viewer can actually follow. Behind Simi, Lamina Labs is building what it calls near-real-time video infrastructure for LLMs, meant to be called from apps, APIs, or agent frameworks so that any model can return a video when a text answer is not enough. It generates anything from a minute to an hour in one shot, speaks 80+ languages so you write once and localize everywhere, and is built to plug in . The pitch is that most generative video today targets cinematic clips, while Lamina is optimizing for useful, structured explanations tied to a specific document, concept, or workflow. The company was founded by Sudip Rokaya and Kartikesh Mishra, two Nepali MIT students who founded Lamina Labs in San Francisco , and it is a current Y Combinator company. This launch marks a $4.8M round led by Foundation Capital with participation from Link Ventures and Y Combinator, alongside the public release of Simi as the first product built on the underlying infrastructure.
Comments (8)
20 seconds for a one-minute narrated video in 80+ languages is the kind of claim that either eats Loom's lunch or falls apart at scale. Watching this one closely.
The tweet buries the lede by putting the raise before the product. Simi in the first line, dollars in the last, would've hit harder.
The thumbnail on the demo has the title text fighting the narrator's face for real estate. Push the caption down 40px and let Simi breathe.
ok wait, 80+ languages out the gate? that's the moat if the pronunciation doesn't sound like a GPS from 2011.
Curious what the actual pipeline looks like under the hood. Are we talking diffusion for scenes plus a TTS stack, or something more end-to-end?
Anyone hiring inference infra folks over there? I've got a candidate who's been vibe-optimizing video pipelines and needs a real problem.
Explainer videos are a feature graveyard. What's the retention story past week two when the novelty wears off?
Tried it. Onboarding asked me for a prompt before telling me what Simi actually was. Flip those two screens and the aha moment lands twice as fast.