Co-founders of NeuralGarage after their SXSW win in March 2025.
Ever watched a movie that felt odd since you watched the dubbed model? The visuals of lip-syncing typically don’t match what you hear, proper? The Indian startup Neural Storage provides an answer that’s an AI-powered one and addressees the long-standing drawback of “visible discord” in dubbing. In an unique interview, Mandar Natekar, Co-founder and CEO, NeuralGarage shares particulars on the know-how – Visible Dub – which fixes lip-sync, and facial expressions for dubbed content material. It even works with modifications in script.
Fixing lip-syncs and extra: An Unique Interview with NeuralGarage co-founder Mandar Natekar
On this unique interview, Natekar explains how the know-how works by completely synchronizing actors’ lip actions and facial expressions with the dubbed audio. The try creates an genuine and immersive viewing expertise, eliminating the visible awkwardness typically present in conventional dubbing.
Earlier this yr, the world’s first film with AI-powered visible dubbing – Swedish sci-fi journey movie Watch the Skies – launched in theatres. The Los Angeles-based movie-making AI agency Flawless labored on the visible dub for the English-dubbed model. NeuralGarage’s Visible Dub additionally works on facial expressions and lip actions for dubbed variations with none contemporary shoots.
Utilizing Visible Dub with a change in script
Requested in regards to the methods his progressive know-how helps improve the expertise of watching dubbed variations of world cinema, Natekar says, “We’ve additionally developed our personal voice cloning know-how. Allow us to say, there’s a Tom Cruise movie that has been dubbed in Hindi. Clearly, Tom Cruise traces will get dubbed by a Hindi dubbing artist – however he doesn’t sound like Tom Cruise. Aside from guaranteeing that the lip-sync matches the Hindi model, we will even make the Hindi dubbing artist sound like Tom Cruise.”
“With our lip-sync know-how and our voice cloning know-how, we will truly now make the dubbed content material look and sound completely pure as if it has been shot and filmed within the language of the audio itself.”
SXSW win
In March 2025, NeuralGarage created historical past once they received the SXSW Pitch Competitors turning into the primary Indian startup to bag the award. NeuralGarage’s Visible Dub know-how received in “Leisure, Media, Sports activities & Content material” class.
Recalling the second, Mandar Natekar says, “SXSW is among the most prestigious platforms in the case of leisure worldwide. It is a platform the place individuals within the enterprise be part of expertise from the world over, together with Hollywood. You get to satisfy individuals from Paramount, Common, Warner Brothers, enterprise executives and actors, administrators…..all of them come to the pageant. This competitors highlights among the finest startups on the planet that would contribute to the leisure trade. Profitable meant we had been judged by a jury that consisted of individuals within the enterprise and folks within the investor ecosystem – very massive VCs had been offered and that’s the form of intense validation for the know-how we constructed, each when it comes to the potential use circumstances and in addition when it comes to the potential enterprise valuation.”
“Profitable the award offers us lots of credibility. Being within the US makes us extra simply marketable – your entire leisure trade is form of situated right here. Now SXSW award offers us prompt credibility. We’ve been getting queries from among the largest studios on the planet and broadcast operations on how we will work collectively, ever for the reason that awards.”
Challenges of constructing NeuralGarage
Recalling his early profession days, Natekar says, “As a co-founder of the corporate – and I’ve three different co-founders – there are challenges. I spent greater than 22 years within the leisure enterprise in India earlier than co-founding my very own. The startup world is completely completely different from the company life. The startup world is totally DIY – it’s important to do every thing your self. It has been a really attention-grabbing journey – in contrast to the company life the place you’re employed to satisfy someone else’s dream, right here you have got the possibility to show your individual desires into actuality and create your individual legacy. There are ups and downs, however they’re half and parcel of life. Some days you get up pondering you’ll win the world. Some day you go to mattress pondering ‘Man, is all of it value it?’ However you then get up within the morning and once more restart.”
“It’s all very attention-grabbing. It’s been 4 years now since we began up. And within the final one yr since we’ve put our know-how out, we’ve seen large success and validation. We obtained chosen by AWS and Google of their world accelerators. We obtained chosen by TechCrunch to take part in TechCrunch Battlefield in SF final October. We additionally received the L’Oreal Huge Bang Magnificence Tech Innovation Competitors, then this win at SXSW not too long ago. Our ambition is to construct software program in India that may truly create a worldwide model. And we’re on our means there.”
A couple of years in the past, proper in the midst of elevating funds for his startup, Mandar Natekar faces main medical and private hurdles. He refuses to revisit the time and delve on the hardships, however agrees to share what he learnt from the interval of battle.
“I’ll let you know my greatest studying – in your life, there are three very sturdy pillars of any profitable individual. The primary one is clearly your individual willpower and thought course of whereas the second is household. The third pillar is well being. You must make sure that all of those pillars are on very, very sturdy basis. You must nurture all of those pillars. If something goes fallacious in any one among these three, it could trigger large upheaval in your life.
Strategies for aspiring tech startups founders
“I inform individuals to at all times chase desires. In case you assume that you’ve got a compelling thought that may change the world, work on it. And there’s no higher time to begin on something you wish to do than now. Usually, individuals procrastinate – ‘I’ll construct this after 5 years’ however these plans don’t work. In case you are keen about one thing and have a compelling thought that you just wish to convey to the world, do it now. There is no such thing as a higher time than this second. In case you base your decision-making on goalposts, you’ll at all times be calculating,” Natekar indicators off along with his bits of recommendations for aspiring founders of tech startups all throughout.
(This dialog has been edited and condensed for readability.)
