Moments Lab is an AI-based video analysis and search platform that helps content producers and organizations efficiently manage, discover, and repurpose their vast libraries of audiovisual media. They focus on turning what might otherwise be inaccessible or difficult-to-search archives into sources of highly monetizable content. Pulse 2.0 interviewed Moments Lab founder Philippe Petitpont to gain a deeper understanding of the company.
Philippe Petitpont’s Background
What is Philippe Petitpont’s background? Petitpont said:
“From an early age, I was obsessed with rockets and rocketry. So when it came time for me to go to university, I went to IPSA, the French Aeronautics & Space Engineering school to study signal processing and satellite systems. But during school, I fell deep into a side project: launching a student-run TV network. As it turned out, that became more meaningful to me than some of my regular coursework and the experience drove me toward broadcast engineering. I landed a job as Product Manager at TF1, one of the largest TV networks in Europe. While there, I designed tools to help journalists work more efficiently with video content.”
Formation Of The Company
How did the idea for the company come together? Petitpont shared:
“While I enjoyed my work at TF1, the pace of innovation just wasn’t fast enough for me. So in 2016, I left TF1 to solve a persistent issue in media production: the time it takes to build quality video content. Around the same time, my brother Fred was working with AI and big data for digital transformation projects. We came together around the idea of treating video as data – and Moments Lab was born. We bootstrapped for four years, then signed our first major customer in 2020. That gave us the foundation to scale, first in Europe, and now in the U.S.”
Favorite Memory
What has been your favorite memory working for the company so far? Petitpont reflected:
“One of my favorite memories is actually pretty recent. We have a client meeting every Monday with a major U.S. media company. About a month ago, in the middle of the meeting, our contact started talking about how our platform is a “life improvement” for the team. It was one of those quick comments that can easily be missed, but it meant the world to us. And week after week, they keep repeating that same phrase, ‘Life Improvement.’ Hearing them speak in those terms confirms that what we’ve created has real purpose and meaning. That moment validated all the years of R&D we put in as a team.”
Core Products
What are the company’s core products and features? Petitpont explained:
“At its core, Moments Lab is a video discovery platform, but our AI model, MXT-2, has enabled us to become much more. MXT-2 uses a multimodal approach to describe video content like a human would, but at scale. This unlocks several capabilities: content search, intelligent metadata tagging, and fast video editing. Customers can repurpose archival footage, generate clips for sponsors, or identify brand-relevant moments in live streams.
“The teams that rely on our platform don’t just save time – their entire experience with video has changed. They can now build stories quickly, explore archives with natural language, and create content at a pace that simply wasn’t possible before.”
Challenges Faced
What challenges have Petitpont and the team face in building the company? Petitpont acknowledged:
“The biggest challenge for us has been the pace of change among our core clients: the media itself. Over the past decade, newsrooms and entertainment companies have shrunk, outlets have merged or folded entirely. Legacy staff are being cut or are retiring amidst the turmoil, and those who remain often have little idea what’s even in their archives. Simultaneously, company leaders are under pressure to do more with fewer resources. They’re desperate for solutions but skeptical – they can’t afford to bring in a solution that won’t work for them.
“Overcoming this skepticism presents a huge challenge for us – but also an opportunity. Thankfully, we work in a very visual medium with very visual, creative people. So once they see a demo of our platform and experience the workflow for themselves, it’s easy for them to understand our value.”
Evolution Of The Company’s Technology
How has the company’s technology evolved since its launch? Petitpont noted:
“In the beginning, we focused on centralizing video in the cloud. Then we moved from unimodal AI (like speech-to-text) to multimodal AI, combining audio, visual, and contextual cues to understand video at a much deeper level.”
“We didn’t stop there. We built our own search engine to work with our metadata. Then we started developing an AI agent to surface content dynamically. We quickly realized that most people don’t want to search, hunt, and peck to get the best clips – they just want answers FAST. That’s where things are headed, so that’s what we’ve been building.”
Significant Milestones
What have been some of the company’s most significant milestones? Petitpont cited:
“There are a few key milestones that come to mind. Our very first VC round in 2019 stands out for me. It came from deep tech investors who approached us proactively, just based on the progress we’d made. That early cash infusion didn’t just accelerate our efforts, it was also a huge lift for our confidence.
“Then, we signed our first long-term customer in 2020, managing a century’s worth of video archives. In 2021, we launched our multimodal AI engine before most people even knew what ‘multimodal’ meant. In 2023, we signed our first U.S. customer. And by 2024, we’d closed deals with several major American media companies.
“This one is more of an ego boost, but we recently beat Google’s Vid2Seq model – the one used in Gemini – by 47% on a segmentation benchmark. That was really empowering for us as we’re a much smaller team than, you know, Google.
“And finally, this year we closed a $24 million funding round, which gives us the resources to scale this next phase.”
Customer Success Stories
When asking Petitpont about customer success stories, he highlighted:
“One of our favorite case studies is our work with Brut, the global news publisher, at the Cannes Film Festival. Brut used Moments Lab to identify, clip, and publish short videos in real time. Sometimes just minutes after they were shot. Brut could deliver fast, high-quality social content that matched the pace of a live event. It’s a perfect example of how we help creators get the most from their footage, no matter how quick the turnaround.”
Funding/Revenue
When asking Petitpont about company and funding, he revealed:
“We’re not disclosing revenue at this time, but I can share that we’re doubling year-over-year. What I care about more than raw numbers is momentum, and we’ve clearly entered a phase where U.S. market traction and global demand are driving serious growth.”
Total Addressable Market
What total addressable market (TAM) size is the company pursuing? Petitpont assessed:
“We estimate our addressable market to be around $50 billion. That includes media, entertainment, sports, and branded content.”
Differentiation From The Competition
What differentiates the company from its competition? Petitpont affirmed:
“First, our AI is moment-based. It doesn’t analyze every frame. Instead, it’s able to understand the context of an entire clip, just like a human can. That makes us fast, scalable, and cost-effective by leveraging a human-like understanding of video.
“Second, we’re not just offering an API. We deliver a full platform with a refined user experience; tailored specifically for creative professionals. Some of our competitors serve many industries with plug-and-play tools. We focus on just a few industries – media, entertainment, sports, and brands – and we go deep. That focus enables us to provide more value for our clients.”
Future Company Goals
What are some of the company’s future goals? Petitpont emphasized:
“Our goal is to become the go-to platform for video discovery and reuse. That means continuing to expand in North America, partnering with top-tier media organizations, and releasing new features that make AI feel invisible – helping people create, not complicate.”
Additional Thoughts
Any other topics you’d like to discuss? Petitpont concluded:
“Just this: critical thinking matters more than ever. As AI becomes more powerful, it’s not enough to automate tasks. We have to build tools that support editorial judgment, creativity, and transparency. That’s where AI really shines – handling arduous, time-intensive tasks and letting humans focus solely on their creative visions.”
