Nepal, June 21 -- wo young Nepalis have founded an AI company that is on the cusp of takeoff after getting funding from a top accelerator program in the United States.

Sudip Rokaya and Kartikesh Mishra did know each other in Nepal, but met as students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Boston. They are now co-founders at Lamina Labs in San Francisco, working on generative video.

Their first product, Simi, generates whiteboard-style explainer videos based on a text prompt, and has received backing from YCombinator (YC), a top startup accelerator and quickly also secured further $3 million funding.

"In high school I did a lot of physics, and I was a visual learner so I really liked educational videos," says Rokaya, cu...