译文/Translated：
Hour One今天宣布其获得了500万美元的种子轮融资，本次投资由交互式内容和科技投资人Galaxy Interactive 通过其与EOSIO区块链软件发布方Block.one合作的Galaxy EOS VC Fund、Remagine Ventures 和Kindred Ventures领投，Amaranthine参与投资。Hour One是数字领域中利用AI技术创造合成角色的先驱。它将用这笔投资扩大其AI驱动的云平台、创造几千个新角色、并扩大其商业活动。
Hour One成立于2019年，其技术能够基于真人创造高质量的数字角色。Hour One利用深度学习和生成对抗神经网络，创造了工业级的、基于视频的角色，且生产可规模化、成本效率高。
“我们相信，为真人打造合成角色将会成为日常生活的一部分。我们的愿景是，Hour One能够推动合成角色的使用，提高商人和不同市场和用例中的个人之间的交流质量。”Hour One的创始人和CEO Oren Aharon说。“我们让每个人都可以创造自己的角色以及我们可规模化的云平台，我们为下一代的远程商业对个人交互提供了许多解决方案。”
这笔投资恰好是在公司取得了巨大的里程碑的时候到来的。2020年1月，Hour One开始在包含数字人物角色的浸入式视频活跃的领域部署其视频。Hour One现在和电子商务、教育、汽车、通讯、企业领域的公司合作，2020年它还计划扩大商业应用。它还在2020年的消费电子展上展示了其“真实还是合成”的相似性测试，让人们辨别其AI生成的真人和合成形象。“我们利用了符合Hour One伦理标准的加密技术确保我们的角色的使用和权利。”Hour One的创始人和CTO Lior Hakim说，“这些技术能让任何人都识别我们的视频，同时还能标记其为‘改变过’来告知观众。”
“Hour One的技术真是一流的，同样卓越的还有其在创造合成视频的时候遵循的伦理原则，毕竟这个开创性的创意带来影响巨大，伦理问题是不容忽视的。再考虑受新冠疫情影响，聘请真人演员的产品面临着极大的挑战，现在不同规模的企业都应该利用Hour One的合成角色生成自己的内容。” Galaxy Interactive的联合创始人和执行董事Sam Englebardt说。
因为这个解决方案能够减少每个角色消耗的成本，企业就不再会受到视频数量的束缚了，“本质上来说，任何文本内容现在都可以自动转变成主播朗读文本、吸引听众的直播视频。” Remagine Ventures的联合创始人和经营合伙人Eze Vidra说。“现在各个规模的企业都理解他们和客户互动的方式需要巨大的改变。现在，有了Hour One这个主要和便宜的方法，他们就可以快速、高效、程序化地引入优秀的客户视频体验。我们很高兴能够投资这个带来如此破坏性解决方案的先驱。”
关于 Hour One:
Hour One在2019年由Oren Aharon 博士和 Lior Hakim创立，它是一个AI驱动的、合成角色平台。这个平台的目标是通过创造真人的合成角色促进数字工作空间经济、让他们能够在数字空间有活动自由，同时让企业能够在服务顾客的时候提供杰出的情感体验。
关于 Galaxy Interactive
Galaxy Interactive是Galaxy Digital的一个分支，Galaxy Digital是一个多样的商业银行，主营数字资产和区块链技术。Galaxy Interactive的负责人是Sam Englebardt (Galaxy Digital的一个合伙人联合创始人) 和 Richard Kim，Galaxy Interactive利用Galaxy EOS VC Fund（和软件开发企业Block.one合作）进行投资，基金总量高达3.25亿美元。Galaxy Interactive的主要投资目标是电子游戏、电子竞技、数字物品、虚拟现实和增强现实（VR/AR）、和生活应用，这些技术都利用EOSIO区块链协议和其它技术支持自己的业务。
关于 Block.one 和 EOS VC
Block.one的EOS VC项目为利用 EOSIO的开发者和创业家提供资金，帮助他们实现以社区为导向的业务。它通过风投合作伙伴基金对建立在EOSIO之上的企业进行投资和提供支持。获得更多信息，请访问Block.one 和 vc.eos.io。
关于 Remagine Ventures
Remagine Ventures 是一个初期风投基金，它投资对象是在技术、娱乐、关注以色列的数据和商业这几个领域的初创企业。
Remagine Ventures 背后是媒体行业一些最领先的公司，它覆盖了以色列市场各种机会——它能促进利用该基金会的战略投资人网络的商业关系，从而加快初创企业进入市场的过程。
原文/Original：
Hour One, a pioneer of artificial intelligence in synthetic character creation in the digital realm, today announced it has completed its $5 million seed funding led by interactive content and technology investor Galaxy Interactive via its Galaxy EOS VC Fund, a partnership with EOSIO blockchain software publisher, Block.one, Remagine Ventures and Kindred Ventures with participation of Amaranthine. Hour One will use the funds to scale its AI driven cloud platform, onboard thousands of new characters, and expand its commercial activities.
Founded in 2019, Hour One develops technologies for creating high quality digital characters based on real people. Utilizing deep learning and generative adversarial neural networks, Hour One generates production grade video-based characters in a highly scalable and cost-effective way.
“We believe that synthetic characters of real people will become a part of our everyday life. Our vision is that Hour One will drive the use of synthetic characters to improve the quality of communication between businesses and people across markets and use cases” said Oren Aharon, Hour One’s Founder and CEO. “By enabling each person to create their own character together with our scalable cloud platform, we will provide a variety of solutions for next-gen remote business-to-human interactions.”
The investment comes at a time of tremendous momentum for the company. In January 2020, Hour One began deploying its videos across sectors where immersive video with digital human characters drives engagement. Hour One is currently working with companies in the e-commerce, education, automotive, communication, and enterprise sectors, with expanded industry applications expected throughout 2020. The company also showcased its “real or synthetic” likeness test at CES 2020, challenging people to distinguish between real and synthetic characters generated by its AI. “We are utilizing encryption technologies backed by Hour One’s ethical standards to secure the use and rights of our characters,” states Lior Hakim, Hour One’s Founder and CTO. “These technologies will enable anyone to identify our videos as well as mark them as altered to notify the viewers”.
“Hour One’s technology is truly best-in-class, as is their ethics-driven approach to the creation of synthetic video and it’s something that can’t be ignored given the implications of this groundbreaking innovation. Given how challenging production with live actors has become as a result of COVID-19, now is the perfect time for businesses of all sizes to produce their content with Hour One’s synthetic characters,” said Sam Englebardt, Co-Founder and Managing Director of Galaxy Interactive.
With the reduction in the cost per character use that the solution affords, companies are no longer constrained in how much video they can create, “in essence, any textual content can now be automatically translated into a live action video of a person that engages an audience by speaking the text” said Eze Vidra, Co-Founder and Managing Partner at Remagine Ventures, “Now more than ever companies of all sizes understand that they need to dramatically change how they engage with their customers. And now, with Hour One, they can rapidly, efficiently, and programmatically introduce exceptional customer video experiences, as a primary and affordable way of doing that. We’re delighted to have invested in a first-mover with such a disruptive solution”.
About Hour One:
Founded in 2019 by Dr. Oren Aharon and Lior Hakim, Hour One is an artificial intelligence driven, synthetic character platform, set forth to drive the economy of the digital workforce powered by synthetic characters of real-life people, giving them the freedom of action in the digital realm while giving businesses an outstanding emotional experience serving their customers.
About Galaxy Interactive
Galaxy Interactive is a division of Galaxy Digital, a diversified merchant bank specializing in digital assets and blockchain technology. Led by Sam Englebardt (one of Galaxy Digital’s partners and co-founders) and Richard Kim, Galaxy Interactive manages and invests from the $325mm Galaxy EOS VC Fund (a partnership with software development company, Block.one) with a particular focus on video games, esports, digital objects, virtual and augmented reality (VR/AR) and lifestyle applications that are leveraging the EOSIO blockchain protocol and other technologies to power their businesses.
About Block.one and EOS VC
Block.one’s EOS VC program offers developers and entrepreneurs the funding they need to create community-driven businesses leveraging EOSIO. It makes investments and provides support to companies building on EOSIO software through its venture capital partnership funds. For further information, please visit Block.one and vc.eos.io.
About Remagine Ventures
Remagine Ventures is an early stage venture capital fund investing in startups at the intersection of tech, entertainment, data and commerce with a spotlight on Israel.
Remagine Ventures is backed by some of the leading corporates in the media industry and covers the full spectrum of opportunity within the Israeli market – accelerating the startup go to market by facilitating commercial relationships leveraging the fund’s strategic investor network.
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