Upload a PDF, paper or article and it automatically produces a narrated animated explainer video — Knowlify , a startup from the Y Combinator Summer 2025 batch, is drawing renewed attention online in July 2026.
July 2026 · Y Combinator S25
Knowlify turns documents nobody reads into videos people watch
Drop in a PDF, paper or article and the tool builds a scene-by-scene storyboard, layers an AI voiceover on top, and returns a narrated animated explainer — a 40-page document distilled into roughly three minutes.
200K+
Videos generated to date
~72h
Turnaround for the commissioned studio model
4
Univ. of Florida alumni founders
From 40 pages to 3 minutes
Compressing a long document into a watchable explainer — drawn to scale.
How the pipeline works
1 · INPUT
PDF, Word, PPT, Docs, blog, text, URL or prompt
→
2 · STRUCTURE
Scene-by-scene storyboard with a step-by-step script
→
3 · RENDER
Motion-graphics video + AI voiceover; chat-edit & re-render
Platform pricing, per month
Minimum
$24–29
~1.5 min/mo · email support
Basic / Standard
$82–415
Brand features · expanded video time
Enterprise
Custom
Unlimited · HD export on paid plans
Where it wins
Non-AI-looking, motion-graphics-centric visuals
Script generation that understands document structure
Document-first workflow — dubbed "Cursor for Animated Videos"
Used by Amazon, ByteDance, Flexport, Supabase, Cerebras
The caveats
HeyGen & Synthesia stronger for avatar-led videos
Per-plan video length caps
Complex content still needs fine-tuning
Crowded field: Powtoon, StudyFetch, Visla, NoteGPT
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