In your own words, what is Deep Render?
A product-focused research organisation on a mission to improve video for billions of people. Deep Render is a pioneering AI video codecs, a new class of technology that aims to make video files up to 10 times smaller at the same perceived quality.
Engineering is about solving problems. What problem is Deep Render solving?
Video files are massive. This makes them expensive to store and difficult to distribute at scale, forcing a constant trade-off between video quality and delivery speed. Video is the dominant load on the internet, accounting for the vast majority (over 90%) of all traffic. Delivering high-quality, low-latency video is expensive, complex, and often fails on congested or mobile networks.
At the scale of billions of daily plays, platforms such as YouTube, Meta and Netflix feel this pain acutely. Even minor inefficiencies in compression lead to massive, compounding costs for bandwidth and storage. This directly impacts their bottom line and can lead to a compromised user experience (like buffering or lower-resolution playback).
Our innovation wasn't just creating an AI compressor; it was making it incredibly small, fast, and efficient enough for everyday devices.
The next wave of technology is fundamentally bottlenecked by this problem. Applications like high-fidelity cloud gaming, AR/VR streaming, remote drone operation, and remote-controlled robotics simply cannot function reliably without a breakthrough in video data efficiency.
What makes Deep Render ground-breaking?
For the last 30 years, video compression has only iterated. Every new codec (like H.264, H.265, AV1) has been built on the same foundational ideas laid in the 1990s.
We didn't just iterate. We rebuilt the entire framework from scratch, creating a completely new class of video compression algorithm based on modern AI. The core insight was to "marry" video compression with machine learning, creating a video codec made entirely of neural networks.
The real challenge is that Neural networks are famously large and require massive computing power. This is useless if a user can't play a 4K video on a mobile phone.
Our innovation wasn't just creating an AI compressor; it was making it incredibly small, fast, and efficient enough for everyday devices. A 4K, 60fps video stream has to process nearly 500 million pixels every second, and our codec can handle that.
How It Works:
- Think of it as two "smart" brains (neural networks) working together.
- Brain 1 (The "Encoder"): You run this neural network on your original video file. It intelligently "understands" the video and compresses it into a much smaller file to be sent over the internet.
- Brain 2 (The "Decoder"): The person receiving the file runs this second neural network. It takes the small file and perfectly reconstructs the high-quality video for viewing.
This entire two-step process happens on each device in real-time, up to 60 times per second!
Co-founders Chri Besenbruch and Arsalan Zafar:
What was the moment that made you think, “I can turn this into a commercial opportunity”?
I can remember two distinct "holy cow, this is it" moments. The first happened at the very beginning, after my co-founder, Arsalan, and I had navigated the "idea maze." The opportunity suddenly felt so real and overwhelmingly obvious. It's hard to describe, but for anyone who wears glasses, it was that exact feeling of putting on a new, correct prescription, the entire landscape just snaps into sharp focus.
The second was a "seeing is believing" moment, when we got our first mobile demo ready. Seeing our AI codec actually running on a mobile phone at over 30 frames per second, in real-time... holding that device in my hand was a complete game-changer. It was the moment the theoretical became a tangible reality.
Wading into unknown territory can be unsettling – what were you most excited by and what was most challenging for you when starting out?
It’s the unparalleled feeling of working with a motivated, incredibly smart team on a single problem that you all deeply care about, in a technology field that fascinates you. It genuinely doesn't get better than that. It’s like achieving a "flow state" that can last for weeks or even months at a time.
The hardest moments weren't the complex technical or strategic decisions. They were the decisions where you knew you had to hurt someone. A perfect example: having to kill a project that one of your most liked and trusted team members has poured their heart into and still deeply believes in. Or, the hardest part of the job, having to let people go. You know it's a necessity of the role, but that knowledge doesn't make the human impact any less difficult.
How did you go about building your team and finding your first team members?
Starting a company right out of university might sound crazy, but it has one huge, built-in advantage: you're already connected to a deep network of talented people. Otherwise, building your team is simple (but not easy): Contact people, pitch your mission, pitch yourself. If both resonate with a candidate, they will join.
We were very specific about what we looked for in people. This was our priority list, in order of importance:
- belief in the same world you want to create
- hard worker
- a tick of non-normalness
- being smart
- not being insane (optional).
What has been the most surprising aspect about your entrepreneurial journey?
The sheer, relentless difficulty of the journey. Everyone says entrepreneurship is hard, but you cannot truly comprehend it until you live it. Experiencing the million high-stakes challenges that have to be solved every single week has given me a profound appreciation for the struggle. It has massively increased my respect for every other founder. If you truly want to challenge yourself to your absolute maximum, start a startup.
At an industry level, I would state the profound, short-sighted inertia within Big Tech. I am incredibly disappointed by the lack of support for AI Codecs from some of the world's largest tech companies. I believe they are being dangerously short-sighted on this topic, and I predict they will come to regret inaction on a massive scale in the next 2-5 years.
What impact has the Enterprise Hub - its programme and wider support from the Academy - had on Deep Render?
I was a member of Shott Scale Up Accelerator, Cohort #13. This was a highly selective, one-year programme focusing on leadership development and mentoring. The single most valuable aspect for me, is the community. It brings together a high-calibre group of like-minded entrepreneurs and facilitates truly open, candid discussions. Learning directly from that peer group was an incredible experience.
The most valuable lesson I learned was that everyone is facing tough problems. This sounds trivial, but seeing it first-hand, and not just knowing it intellectually, makes it surprisingly easier to face your own challenges :)
The Academy has also helped me with investor introduction and amplification of successes and milestones, and I am very grateful for their support. Fantastic people, fantastic organisation!
Would you have any tips for potential applicants?
Be authentic and genuinely mission-driven. Everyone can tell the difference between someone who has a real passion for the mission and someone who is just saying what they think we want to hear. It is astonishing how many people sound exactly alike. I hear the same rehearsed answers to the same questions, and it's clear they haven't stopped to really think about whether that answer is actually true for them.
My single biggest tip: Dare to be contrarian. Say something thoughtful that isn't the "safe" answer. It's the fastest way to prove you are an independent thinker, it makes you memorable, and frankly, it makes the whole process (and life) more fun! :-)
It’s the unparalleled feeling of working with a motivated, incredibly smart team on a single problem that you all deeply care about, in a technology field that fascinates you.
The Academy has helped me with investor introduction and amplification of successes and milestones, and I am very grateful for their support.
Quick fire...
- My role model is... Elon Musk has many admirable qualities...
- A random fact not many people know about me is....I’ve eaten a cookie for breakfast every day for seven years straight. Not missed a single day :)
- When I was a child, I wanted to be… King of the world
- Netflix/Prime show I am currently binging... KPop Demon Hunters and Westworld (Season 1 only)
- Best piece of advice I’ve ever received is....Be optimistic
- Conversely, the worst piece of advice is... Be realistic (realistic people are boring)
- If I were an investor, the Hub Member I would invest in is....Khalid Jabbar
- If I had to start all over again, I would change....Faster focus on the commercial/business side, even at the expense of initial technological progress
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