Clipto, a three-year-old startup based in San Francisco with teams in Singapore and Hong Kong, has raised $15 million in an all-equity funding round, valuing the company at $250 million. The company uses artificial intelligence to search and index vast amounts of video, audio, images, meetings, and other files on users' devices. Unlike some larger competitors, Clipto emphasizes local processing without relying on cloud services, allowing users to search their content by natural language queries or with AI assistants like ChatGPT and Claude.

Founder Henry Kang, who has a background in robotics and AI from Carnegie Mellon University, began his journey working on systems that recognized and cataloged physical objects, later applying these ideas to fashion and video startups acquired by Tencent. He established Clipto in 2023 with a vision that transcended content creation, focusing instead on enabling users to easily find and reuse their existing digital content amid the overwhelming growth of media files. Initially serving video creators, Clipto’s user base has since expanded to include professionals such as lawyers, doctors, educators, marketers, and human resource specialists.

Since its launch, Clipto reports over 30 million users and hundreds of thousands of paying subscribers, with a significant portion maintaining subscriptions beyond two years. As of early 2026, the startup reached $15 million in annual recurring revenue and is profitable on a net income basis. With a lean team of just over 20 employees, the company has recently integrated the Model Context Protocol (MCP), enabling secure connections between Clipto and external AI tools under the user’s control and authorization.

The company operates in a competitive landscape where major players like Adobe, Apple, and Google offer AI-powered search features mainly within their own ecosystems. Clipto’s strategy is to provide a unified search solution across multiple file types and services, positioning itself as a unique product separate from existing platforms. The new funds will be directed toward enhancing AI models, improving infrastructure for consumer hardware, and expanding integrations with various AI agents to broaden Clipto’s capabilities.