Generative AI Image Editing Startup Photoroom Raises $43M
Generative AI image editing platform Photoroom has raised $43 million in a Series B financing round led by Balderton Capital and Aglaé Ventures and joined by YCombinator. Photoroom tied the funding news to its new Photoroom Instant Diffusion (Photoroom ID) foundation model aimed at product photography.
Photoroom
Photoroom is a popular example of the growing number of synthetic media creation and editing services leveraging large language models (LLMs) and other generative AI tools. The new investment brings the total raised by Photoroom to $64 million. Photoroom plans to use the new money to enhance its generative AI capabilities, including by expanding its image databases and buying more GPUs to up its computing power. The startup claims to have already attracted 150 million downloads and grown its user base significantly.
One outlet of the company’s strategy has emerged with Photoroom ID. The new foundation model is dedicated to product photography. The idea is to develop the model to be a top-tier tool for taking pictures of products for marketing and advertising purposes. Using the model should result in synthetic images that appear to be photos taken in the same environment of the same product. With the custom model in place, Photoroom will be able to rapidly augment it with new data, grafting it onto the architecture of the model. The tailored nature of the model will also accelerate image creation, with Photoroom boasting it goes after than any rival synthetic image models by up to 40%.
“The foundation model is the next step in empowering businesses to create amazing product photos without the need to be an expert at prompt engineering or photography. Our model has been trained to excel at product photography and can quickly adapt to user needs and feedback,” Photoroom CEO Matthieu Rouif said. “We are not only increasing the speed of our model, but also optimizing for quality, through higher resolution, more detailed images, and a larger training dataset than ever before. As a user-centric AI company, we designed the architecture to make sense for our users.”
Photoroom is also introducing a suite of generative AI-powered photo-editing tools aimed at providing businesses with greater creative flexibility, as seen in the image at the top. These features include AI Backgrounds, AI Expand, AI Images, AI Fill, Auto-rotate, AI Upscale, and an Image Editing API, each designed to streamline and enhance the photo-editing process for commercial use. The company’s collaboration with photographers and image providers serves as the source for the model training dataset. Photoroom also has an API used by several bi0gname brands like Netflix, Faire, and Bulgari. The company’s technology also led to the Barbie Selfie Generator, an app used to promote the Barbie film by creating an image of a Barbie doll based on a picture taken by a user.
“Photoroom shattered all expectations,” Warner Bros. executive vice president of Worldwide Digital Marketing Cameron Curtis said. “Its unparalleled ease of use became the catalyst for propelling the Barbie Selfie Generator into the digital spotlight, and captivating audiences worldwide.”
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