Have you been overwhelmed by catching up to the various AI models you can use to create content? A startup called Krea is specifically trying to solve this problem for designers and other visual creatives, and currently raising $83 million for its platform, which believes it will make working with the generator AI even smoother.
San Francisco-based Krea offers a “unified” platform that provides tools from multiple models and provides custom interfaces aimed at creating queries, as well as custom interfaces that are significantly easier and customizable for subsequent editing sent to those models. Its user base includes creators from Perplexity AI, Loop Earplugs, Pixar, LEGO, and Samsung.
Krea’s funds were announced for the first time today, with $83 million actually appearing in several tranches. The latest Series B, totaling $47 million. This was preceded by $3 million and $33 million assumptions/species and Series A, respectively. TechCrunch learned from sources close to the contract that the startup is currently valued at $500 million in post money.
Bain Capital Venture is leading the latest round. Other major investors in startups include Andreessen Horowitz and abstract ventures.
From creatives to AI creators
Claire is the brainchild of Victor Perez (CEO) and Diego Rodriguez (CTO), whom I met while a student at Barcelona 10 years ago. Both think of themselves as creative and creators – Perez of music performance and production, and Rodriguez of art, but they are always interested in technical subjects as well.
“I liked physics, mathematics, and the problems that challenged my mind,” Perez recalls his student days, saying.
The degree to which they introduced each other was the engineering of audiovisual systems. They quickly become friends, and Perez believes that Rodriguez has sparked his interest in AI.
It returned to 2015, a few years before the generative AI boom, but it was a formative moment for artificial intelligence. That was when Openai was founded, and startups that strived early on, focusing on content created by AI, attracted attention.
After their bachelor’s degree, the two became AI researchers. Rodriguez eventually applied to return to graduate school and won a fellowship from the King of Spain to attend Cornell. Perez followed, earning the same fellowship and later entered the semester.
But in the end, Perez ended up staying at Cornell for a full day.
why? He was already thinking of something that would be an early version of Claire, right up to the move. Excited, he landed in New York and quickly approached Rodriguez with his idea. Rodriguez jumped in with both feet and the two fell out to build a startup.
A leap to jump
The market gap Krea is working on is huge at this point. Simply put, the world was quickly flooded with genai tools. This presents some issues to the average designer when it comes to visual models.
Designers are not quick engineers and don’t want to be upset by the technical process of oral AI interrogation. Designers are generally less interested in keeping up with the latest model updates and understanding which models are more effective than what they are trying to do.
“Each model is jumping very quickly by another model,” said Aaref Hilaly, a partner at Bain Capital Ventures, in an interview. “If you’re the creator and want to use these models (…), it makes sense to have a layer like Krea above all of them, and it provides value to the creators.
The creator, the founder of Krea, claims it works best when you have software that understands your sensibility. Designers are creative and attracted to software that aids the process.
“Many companies are focusing on replacing creative workflows,” Perez said. “But we don’t think creativity will be automated. We are building tools to help people become more creative, focused more on ideas and use this new creative media.”
Krea’s platform is ostensibly set up for that. Users start by entering ideas for the image they want to create. The idea is handled by Krea. Krea chooses the model they believe can provide the best results to users based on their requests. It could be one model or multiple models. Users can then edit and adjust the selection of results to further refine them.
The idea of a “one-stop shop” is not exactly original. For example, Quora’s Poe approaches the same idea for text-based generated AI responses. However, Krea’s ability to change images is a unique feature that she believes will help keep creators’ vision and talent in a mix.
“Why can’t you ride an image (generated by AI) and click and drag and drop something, or take something out?” asked Rodriguez. “That’s how painters work.”
The company’s tools cover still images and videos, and are working to expand the platform to support tools for audio and music generation, Perez said. The company says funds will also be used to build more enterprise features. So far, this product has served individuals and small teams.
“Krea extends human creativity with products that provide users with complete control without sacrificing power or craft,” Anish Acharya, general partner at Andreessen Horowitz, said in a statement to TechCrunch. “They have built a platform that runs at the best speed of AI research, but they have been intuitive from day one. The combination is extremely rare, so we’re excited about what’s going forward.”