Velvet

Velvet is a multimodal AI model R&D company (the "multimodal data lab") based in San Francisco and backed by Y Combinator's Fall 2025 batch. It partners with frontier AI labs and enterprises to build state-of-the-art video datasets and evaluation frameworks that improve models' spatial reasoning and interactive, low-latency capabilities. Velvet operates an invite-only platform for sourcing and contributing multimodal training data, with contributor payouts via Stripe and Wise. It was founded by Lucas Mantovani (CEO, formerly video data at Meta FAIR) and Lucas Tucker (CTO, formerly Adobe). As of this enrichment pass the company publishes no public API, developer documentation, or SDK.

Velvet is profiled on the APIs.io network. Tagged areas include Company, Artificial Intelligence, Multimodal AI, Machine Learning, and Datasets.

Velvet’s developer surface includes support and 6 more developer resources.

🌐 Visit website 📡 Source on GitHub

14.5/100 minimal ▬ flat Agent 0/100 human only Full breakdown ↓
scored 2026-07-27 · rubric v0.5

AccessApproval

0 APIs

CompanyArtificial IntelligenceMultimodal AIMachine LearningDatasetsModel EvaluationVideoWorld ModelsY Combinator

Kin Score

Kin Score How this is scored →
scored 2026-07-27 · rubric v0.5

Composite quality — 14.5/100 · minimal

Contract Quality 0.0 / 25

Developer Ergonomics 0.9 / 20

Commercial Clarity 6.8 / 20

Operational Transparency 0.0 / 13

Governance 0.0 / 12

Discoverability 6.8 / 10

Agent readiness — 0/100 · human only

Machine-Readable Contract 0 / 18

Agentic Access Contract 0 / 15

MCP Server 0 / 12

Machine-Readable Auth 0 / 10

Idempotency 0 / 9

Stable Error Semantics 0 / 8

Request/Response Examples 0 / 7

Rate-Limit Signaling 0 / 7

Typed Event Surface 0 / 6

Agent Skills 0 / 5

Well-Known Catalog 0 / 4

Consent & Bot Identity 0 / 3

Improve this rating by publishing the missing artifacts — every area above can be raised, and the full rubric is at apis.io/rating/. This rating is computed from github.com/api-evangelist/velvet: open an issue to ask a question, or submit a pull request to add artifacts. Want it done for you? Prioritized profiling — $2,500 →

Get Started 1

Portal, sign-up, and the first successful call

Login

Agent Surfaces 1

MCP servers, agent skills, and machine-readable catalogs

LLMsTxt

LLMsTxt

Access & Security 1

Authentication, authorization, and security posture

DomainSecurity

DomainSecurity

Operate 1

Status, limits, changes, and where to get help

Support

Support

Commercial 2

Pricing, plans, and the legal terms of use

PrivacyPolicy

PrivacyPolicy

TermsOfService

TermsOfService

Company 1

The organization behind the API

Website

Website

Source (apis.yml)

aid: velvet
name: Velvet
description: Velvet is a multimodal AI model R&D company (the "multimodal data lab") based in San Francisco and backed by
  Y Combinator's Fall 2025 batch. It partners with frontier AI labs and enterprises to build state-of-the-art video datasets
  and evaluation frameworks that improve models' spatial reasoning and interactive, low-latency capabilities. Velvet operates
  an invite-only platform for sourcing and contributing multimodal training data, with contributor payouts via Stripe and
  Wise. It was founded by Lucas Mantovani (CEO, formerly video data at Meta FAIR) and Lucas Tucker (CTO, formerly Adobe).
  As of this enrichment pass the company publishes no public API, developer documentation, or SDK.
url: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/api-evangelist/velvet/refs/heads/main/apis.yml
accessModel:
  pricing: unknown
  onboarding: approval
  trial: false
  try_now: false
  public: false
  label: Requires approval
  confidence: medium
  source: []
  generated: '2026-07-22'
  method: derived
image: https://velvetlab.ai/logos/LOGO_UPSCALED.png
x-type: company
x-source: vc-portfolio
x-backed-by:
- y-combinator
x-tier: stub
x-tier-reason: portfolio-lead
specificationVersion: '0.20'
created: '2026-07-17'
modified: '2026-07-21'
tags:
- Company
- Artificial Intelligence
- Multimodal AI
- Machine Learning
- Datasets
- Model Evaluation
- Video
- World Models
- Y Combinator
common:
- type: DomainSecurity
  url: security/velvet-domain-security.yml
- type: LLMsTxt
  url: llms/velvet-llms.txt
- type: Support
  url: mailto:support@velvet.video
- url: https://velvetlab.ai
  type: Website
- url: https://velvetlab.ai/privacy.html
  type: PrivacyPolicy
- url: https://velvetlab.ai/terms.html
  type: TermsOfService
- url: https://velvetlab.ai/dashboard
  type: Login
apis: []
x-enrichment:
  date: '2026-07-21'
  status: minimal
  artifacts_added: 3
  pass: local-v1
maintainers:
- FN: Kin Lane
  email: kin@apievangelist.com
- FN: APIs.json
  email: info@apis.io