Photoroom, an innovative AI-based photo editing app developed in the bustling city of Paris, has been spreading like wildfire among online businesses and casual users alike. Recently, CEO and co-founder Matthieu Rouif announced that the company has successfully raised $43 million in its latest funding round with a valuation of $500 million. Rouif, alongside CTO Eliot Andres, founded Photoroom four years ago and has seen tremendous growth since then.
We were first to report on the company’s funding round in January, when initial estimates suggested it could exceed $50 million. In the end, the final amount was slightly lower, but still an impressive feat.
This financial boost comes amidst a competitive market, with notable players such as Picsart, who have raised nearly $200 million, and Pixelcut. Despite the intense competition, Photoroom has managed to process approximately 5 billion images annually and has reached a milestone of 150 million downloads through its app. Additionally, the company offers its services through an API and web interface as well.
Leading the funding round was Balderton Capital, with new investor Aglaé, and previous investor YCombinator also participating. Other investors have not been disclosed, but previous backers include Kima Ventures, FJ Labs, Meta, and several notable individuals such as Yann LeCun, Zehan Wang, and executives from Hugging Face and Disney+.
The total amount raised by Photoroom now stands at an impressive $64 million, and the company plans to use these funds to hire more employees and continue investing in research and development, as well as infrastructure. Despite the tech industry facing significant layoffs, Photoroom currently employs 50 individuals and aims to double that number by the end of the year.
Unlike many AI-focused startups, Photoroom has taken a unique approach by training its own models from scratch. This requires significant investment in computing power and securing image rights from agencies and creators. To support this, the company is actively looking to hire technical talent to further enhance the efficiency and operation of their models. As an example, Photoroom claims that their custom architecture allows for images to be generated 40% faster compared to other visual AI platforms.
Rouif commented,
“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.”
In addition to their homegrown models, Photoroom continues to release new features. The funding announcement coincides with the launch of a new tool called Photoroom Instant Diffusion, which aims to create consistently styled product images for a single seller, no matter where or how they were originally shot. Their other features include AI-generated backgrounds, scene expansions, AI-generated images, and a variety of image editing tools. For those working with large quantities of images, Photoroom also offers the ability to process them automatically in one go.
We are hoping to speak with Rouif and potentially an investor, and we will update this post accordingly if we do. (They didn’t reach out to us beforehand!)
Bernard Liautaud, Managing Partner at Balderton, praised Photoroom’s success, saying,
“Balderton has witnessed Photoroom’s remarkable journey from its inception, and we are continually impressed by their ability to lead and execute on their user-centric vision. Photoroom’s generative AI capabilities are unparalleled, and we have no doubt that they will continue to lead the way in this rapidly evolving landscape.”
[…] unable to overcome its massive debt. In a move to salvage its business, Thrasio has secured $90 million in financing from its existing […]