YZi Labs leads $11M funding round for AI video startup

YZi Labs makes its first AI investment in VideoTutor, an AI video education startup founded by 20-year-old Kai Zhao. The firm gained $11 million in funding from major ventures.

According to an article published on X, the venture capital YZi Labs led a $11 million seed funding round to support VideoTutor, an AI education startup founded by 20-year-old Silicon Valley entrepreneur Kai Zhao. This marks YZi Labs’ first AI software investment since expanding its sector coverage earlier this year.

Aside from YZi Labs, the funding round also saw participation from many major venture capital firms, including the ByteDance-affiliated JinQiu Fund, Baidu Ventures, Amino Capital, BridgeOne Capital and others.

The funding will be used to fuel VideoTutor’s research and development division as well as upgrade its AI animation engine and education models to improve the quality and speed of its video generation.

VideoTutor is a fairly new company that was established in May 2025 by Kai Zhao, a 20-year-old college student and entrepreneur whose previous AI education startup was backed by Y Combinator, and James Zhan with Meta and Google work experience.

The startup aims to provide students with an AI tutor that can turn questions and prompts into personalized and voice-guided animated lessons. The service is available 24/7 for students in K–12, SAT/ACT, STEM, and language learners.

So far, VideoTutor has reached more than 20,000 users and generated more than 20,000 videos within the first 10 days of operations. Since its launch, it has received over 1,000 API integration requests from education institutions and learning platforms worldwide.

Founder and CEO of Video Tutor, Kai Zhao said that the company initially received more than 10 term sheets for the seed funding round, but ultimately decided on YZi Labs as their lead investor because he believes the two firms share the same goal of making education accessible, personalized and affordable.

“We know YZi Labs’ mission is to use AI to democratize access to opportunity. From my first conversation with [AI Investment Director at YZi Labs, Dr Jing Xiong] Dr. Jing, I could feel she genuinely cares about that mission,” said Zhao in a recent statement.

“And seeing CZ’s commitment to Giggle Academy, his free education platform, reinforced our confidence,” he continued.

What are YZi Labs’ recent investments?

YZi Labs, previously known as Binance Labs, Binance’s investment division, is a venture capital firm that backs early-stage startups in sectors such as Web3, cryptocurrency, artificial intelligence, and biotechnology.

Established in early 2025, the firm serves as the family office of Binance co-founders Changpeng Zhao and Yi He, who are also longtime partners. At press time, the firm claims to have an investment portfolio that covers more than 300 projects in over 25 countries. At least 65 of the 300 companies have gone through the venture capital’s incubation program for startups.

Before VideoTutor, the firm had previously invested in an AI hardware project. In August 2025, YZi Labs invested in USD.AI, a stablecoin issuer protocol that enables AI hardware operators to put up their GPUs as collateralized loans for the token. The company would then issue stablecoins that are backed on a 1:1 ratio by the hardware.

Earlier this month, head of YZi Labs Changpeng Zhao confirmed that the firm held a minority stake in the new decentralized prediction market, Opinion. The venture capital led its $5 million seed funding round, with participation from Animoca Ventures, Amber Group, Manifold, and Echo Community.

In the past month, YZi Labs has also invested $50 million in the payment protocol Better Payment Network and an undisclosed amount into Temple Digital Group, the company behind Canton Network’s first native trading platform.