Startup profile · funding coverage
Clipto funding, valuation and investors
Local-first AI search across video, audio, images, and documents on a user’s computer, with optional MCP access for agents.
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Funding, valuation & investors
Answer-first snapshotLatest funding
Undisclosed (all-equity)
$15M · August 2026
Latest known valuation
$250M post-money
Undisclosed (all-equity) · August 2026
Total disclosed equity funding
$15M
Excludes debt, grants, acquisitions, secondaries, and IPO proceeds.
Current status
private
Stage not recorded · San Francisco, California, USA
Investors in latest funding
Other: HSG , GL Ventures , EnvisionX Capital , Palm Drive Capital , Hans Tung , Lu Zhang , 522 Ventures
Overview
Clipto (clipto.com) indexes private video, audio, images, and documents on-device so people and authorized agents can search them in natural language. Founded in 2023 by Henry Kang in San Francisco, with teams in Singapore and Hong Kong. Kang’s prior company Zenvideo was acquired by Tencent in 2020. On August 31, 2026 the company announced $15 million all-equity at a $250 million post-money valuation from HSG (formerly Sequoia China), GL Ventures, EnvisionX Capital, Palm Drive Capital, Hans Tung, Lu Zhang, and 522 Ventures — no lead named. Kang told TechCrunch $15 million ARR at the start of 2026, net-income profitability, just over 20 employees, more than 30 million people who have used the products, and hundreds of thousands of paying subscribers, without a precise count or ARPU. Those firms do not have Venture Capital Tracker fund pages. Do not file HSG as /fund/sequoia.
Why Clipto is interesting
August 31, 2026: $15 million all-equity at $250 million post-money. Founder Henry Kang told TechCrunch $15 million ARR and net-income profitability with just over 20 employees — about 17× ARR if both numbers hold. No lead named. HSG is not Sequoia Capital.
Product & use cases
On-device index of local media plus MCP so authorized agents can query a user’s library without a default cloud upload.
- Creators finding a shot by description instead of scrubbing a timeline
- Professionals searching meetings, lectures, and documents on-device
- Agent workflows that retrieve only user-authorized clips
Key facts
- Aug 31, 2026: $15M all-equity at $250M post (company PR + TechCrunch). No named lead.
- Kang to TC: $15M ARR start of 2026; net-income profitable; ~20 employees
- >30 million have used the products (company); hundreds of thousands paying — count and ARPU declined
- HSG is formerly Sequoia China, not Sequoia Capital
- Competitors inside Adobe / Apple / Google libraries; Clipto claims cross-format local search
Funding history (newest first)
Undisclosed (all-equity)
2026-08 $15M Valuation: $250M post-money- HSG
- GL Ventures
- EnvisionX Capital
- Palm Drive Capital
- Hans Tung
- Lu Zhang
- 522 Ventures
Competitive landscape
Edge: Local, cross-format, agent-accessible. Traction numbers are founder-claimed; ARPU was declined.
Clipto is priced at ~17× a founder-stated $15M ARR. Diligence is whether ARR is still $15M and whether Adobe/Apple/Google make a stand-alone search app unnecessary.
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Adobe Premiere incumbent
AI search inside Premiere libraries (TechCrunch).
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Apple Photos / Google Photos incumbent
Natural-language search inside their own photo/video lock-in.
Notable stories
- Kang told TechCrunch he worked on memory-for-robots as a CMU PhD student in 2006; Zenvideo sold to Tencent in 2020.
Industries
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FAQs about Clipto
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