A childhood obsession with “The Sims” has evolved into an $11 million artificial intelligence startup now powering digital training for global brands like L’Oréal and Henkel. Co-founded by Synthesia alumni Caoimhe Murphy and Ben Carr, Anam is building real-time, emotionally intelligent AI personas that replicate human presence with near-flawless realism, Forbes reports.

Backed by Redpoint Ventures, Anam just closed a $9 million seed round, bringing its total funding to $11 million and accelerating plans for U.S. expansion and product development, Forbes says. According to Anam, the funding will bolster the company's proprietary CARA II model, which enables hyper-realistic, sub-second AI avatar responses that mimic natural conversation, body language, and facial expressions.

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Redpoint-Backed Anam Powers AI Customer Support and Training for L'Oréal, Schwarzkopf, and Henkel

Enterprise clients are already using Anam's technology to create scalable, always-on AI instructors, therapists, and brand ambassadors, Forbes says. At Henkel's Schwarzkopf brand, executives noticed that employees were relying on TikTok for professional development, prompting the company to partner with Anam to deliver a controlled, high-quality training experience that actually engaged their workforce.

"They needed a training platform that was engaging and could be controlled," Murphy told Forbes. "That's where Anam came in."

According to Forbes, the avatars blink, raise their eyebrows, and move with sub-second reaction time in real-time conversation. Anam says these AI personas can be created from a single uploaded image and integrated using a lightweight software development kit with just a few lines of code. Depending on client needs, the avatars can be deployed in healthcare, sales, onboarding, or customer service settings.

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Synthesia Alumni Launch AI Persona Startup That Can Clone You From One Image

Murphy and Carr first connected at Synthesia, a $2 billion generative AI company known for text-to-video avatars, where Murphy worked on go-to-market strategy and Carr worked as a research engineer, according to Forbes. The duo left to build something more expressive: AI personas that could replicate full emotional nuance in real time instead of static, pre-rendered videos.

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Anam's new feature, "One Shot," allows users to create a live, interactive AI persona from just a single image, though the tool is currently limited to enterprise clients due to ethical safeguards and safety risks, Forbes says. According to Murphy, keeping the tech private for now is essential to avoid misuse while the company finalizes guardrails for broader release.

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Anam Says Humans Are the Competition, Not Other AI Startups

While most AI founders come from engineering backgrounds, Murphy stands out as a commercially focused CEO who has never written a line of code, yet successfully closed funding rounds and secured major corporate partnerships, Forbes reports.

"Our vision is to have AI personas that feel indistinguishable from real life," Murphy told Forbes. "We need to create personas that feel even more engaging and realistic than human beings."

The company has drawn funding from top-tier investors including ElevenLabs, Torch Capital, Concept Ventures, and Replicate Labs. According to Anam, its software development kit makes it easy to embed real-time AI personas into any platform, powered by expressive, photorealistic technology.

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This article This Startup's AI Personas Now Train Staff At L'Oréal—And The Founder Says She Got The Idea From The Sims originally appeared on Benzinga.com

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