Last Updated: 19 May 2026
Flick, an AI-native filmmaking platform, has raised $6 million in a seed round. The company was co-founded by filmmaker Zoey Zhang and Ray Wang, who helped build the first version of Instagram Stories. Their starting point is simple: most AI video tools were not built for filmmakers, and Flick intends to fix that.
The AI video generator market was valued at $716.8 million in 2025 and is projected to reach between $847 million and $946 million in 2026, depending on the source, with North America accounting for roughly 41 percent of global market share. Most of that growth has come from tools built for speed and volume, producing quick social media clips and marketing assets rather than narrative films. Flick is going after a different kind of user.
The $6 million seed round included True Ventures, GV (Google's venture arm), Y Combinator, Lightspeed, Formosa Capital, Pioneer Fund, Olive Tree Capital, N1, and several angel investors.
The AI video space has expanded fast, but not evenly. Tools that help a marketing team produce a product video in minutes tend to struggle when someone wants to tell a story, build a scene, or maintain a consistent visual style across shots. Filmmakers who have tried existing platforms often hit a familiar limit: the software is either too rigid for real creative work or too technical for anyone without an engineering background.
Over 124 million people now use AI video platforms every month, and 63 percent of video marketers have used AI tools to help create or edit content. The user base is large, but it skews toward content production rather than filmmaking. Flick's position is that a meaningful share of creators wants something built more like a director's workspace than a content generator.
"The majority of generative video is unrefined, prioritizing volume over substance. Flick is part of an entirely new category, built for the serious filmmakers who want to use AI, not as a shortcut, but as a tool to enhance their creativity. The next Tarantino, the next Spielberg, the next Scorsese – I believe they're going to get their start on a platform like Flick."
Sangeen Zeb, General Partner at GV
Flick will put the capital toward product development, with an emphasis on expanding tools that give filmmakers finer control over how AI-generated footage looks and behaves. The company is also running a community program called the Flick Filmmaker Residency. The program launched with more than 10 short AI-native films, produced by emerging filmmakers and shown at Cinequest Film Festival, MIT, and the Omni AI Film Festival.
Zhang leads each residency cohort. Participants get access to industry contacts, mentorship, and hands-on production support from start to finish. The goal is to produce finished short films. By centering the program around working filmmakers, Flick is trying to build credibility in the creative community alongside its product.
"Ray and Zoey represent the perfect combination of world-class technical execution and deep creative understanding. They're not just building AI tools – they're empowering a new generation of filmmakers to focus on what matters most: storytelling and artistic expression. Their craft-first approach and genuine commitment to the creative community makes them the ideal team to define this emerging category of AI-native filmmaking."
Mike Montano, Partner at True Ventures
Flick grew out of a collaboration that started in April 2025, when Zhang and Wang began working together on her second AI short film. Wang's background is in large-scale product engineering. He helped build Instagram Stories in 2016, and the product reached over 400 million daily active users. Zhang has been making films since 2013. She moved into AI filmmaking in 2022, and in February 2025 she won the Best Visual Award at the MIT AI Film Hack. Her AI films have since been nominated or awarded at more than 30 international film festivals.
Flick is built around a non-linear workflow, meaning filmmakers do not have to follow a fixed sequence of steps to produce a scene. Instead of typing a text prompt and waiting for a finished video, users direct AI-generated content through tools that handle composition, scene control, and iteration. The idea is that the technology stays in the background while the creative decisions stay with the filmmaker.
"At Flick, creators don't lose their authentic voice as AI scales. We're building a bridge so filmmakers won't think about 'prompting models' at all — they'll just direct, compose, and feel, and the tools will disappear into their creative flow."
Zoey Zhang, Co-founder of Flick
The $6 million seed round brought together True Ventures, GV, Y Combinator, Lightspeed, Formosa Capital, Pioneer Fund, Olive Tree Capital, and N1. This is the company's first disclosed round of funding.
True Ventures is a Silicon Valley-based early-stage venture capital firm founded in 2005, with more than $3.8 billion under management. GV is Alphabet's independent venture arm, founded in 2009, managing over $10 billion across more than 400 portfolio companies. Y Combinator is a startup accelerator founded in 2005 behind companies like Airbnb, Stripe, and Dropbox. Pioneer Fund pools capital from over 500 YC alumni to invest in top YC startups. Lightspeed is a multi-stage firm with over $28 billion under management across enterprise, consumer, health, and fintech. Olive Tree Capital is an evergreen investment vehicle with a dedicated focus on YC companies. N1 is an early-stage fund investing in software and AI startups. Formosa Capital is a private investment firm.
