Controversy still surrounds the world of AI-generated images, and even AI-generated images used in elections It became a source of concern This week at the World Economic Forum, startups continue to plow a new furrow of AI tools for innovators.
The latest is Reformulate, an AI-powered graphic design builder aimed at professionals, has raised a $12 million funding round led by Silicon Valley firm Khosla Ventures, along with former GitHub CEO Nat Friedman. RTP Global, Abstract VC, Basis Set Ventures, Elad Gil, and several other angel investors also participated.
Admittedly, there are now countless generative AI design tools, such as Jasper, Adobe Sensei, Let’s Enhance, and many others. However, Recraft claims to be among the first to become a “foundational” tool, meaning that it builds on its foundation model — a pre-trained deep learning algorithm — to create consistent design elements, such as icons and images. Which can be modified and used within the brand’s style controls. It also claims to have raised over 300,000 since its launch eight months ago.
But this was not designed as a tool to post funny pictures of cowboy dogs riding horses, or anything like that. In addition to the ability to produce these “bitmaps,” it can also create vector images that are infinitely scalable and used in professional graphic design fields, unlike platforms where image quality is often limited.
This is perhaps to be expected, since founder Anna Veronika Dorogosz is not a non-technical founder. invented Cat Post,A high-performance open source library for gradient boosting in ,decision trees, e.g. Dorogosh, a former head of machine learning systems at search engine Yandex in Moscow, and her team of 13 are currently based in London.
“You have to provide a lot of control over the output to the users…on style, so you can have consistent images, control over things like brand colors or level of detail,” she told me over a phone call that fundraising will bolster her attempts to build her own enterprise model. As well as the ability to repeat the resulting image.
“But if the model initially cannot generate a billiard player or a ballerina, it means that just using fine-tuning is not enough to provide high-quality generation, as of now,” she added. “So we have to build our own model and work on that now.”
Recraft is largely aimed at professionals, she says: “What’s unique about what we do is that we don’t just offer image generation. We also offer style control: the ability to create your own style and then create images in your own style… This is important if you want to Create and grow a brand, create marketing materials, and create consistent advertising.
I asked her what the probability was of them being sued by an artist whose style was used on the Recraft platform.
“We do state in our area conditions “If an artist uploads something into the system as a sterile reference — like an image for which he or she will be able to create new images — we don’t use it to train our model,” Dorogosh says.
“We don’t use it to train our model.”
She added that Recraft effectively adds generic styles to images uploaded by artists: “You provide the style to the model. So you have the style reference. And then you create images using that reference style. So the action the user takes is to provide the style.”
Dorogosh also says that rather than displacing graphic designers, tools like Recraft are likely to make graphic design more accessible in areas where uninspiring stock images might currently be used: “A year ago, if you were writing a children’s book, you got stock images Now, the same people can get even more beautiful illustrations and photos in the same books.
Of course, Recraft isn’t the only startup working in this space, and last year I covered how Berlin-based Kittl raised a €10.8 million ($11.6 million) Series A for its design platform to let users turn ideas into graphic products. To create professional designs quickly.
CEO Nicola Heymann told me this week over a phone call that products like Recraft are part of an increasingly sophisticated set of tools that provide alternatives for designers: “I think if Recraft is able to successfully produce design assets — similar to how image generation models can be A good alternative nowadays to stock photo libraries – it could certainly take it [some market] Share of those icon libraries.”
Dorogush says there’s room for more than one player right now and that Kittl has a different use case for Recraft: “We have a unique technology for building style-consistent images, and that’s our main focus. We’re focused on graphic designers and marketers who need style consistency, while Kittl is focused on “The merchandise, I have great respect for them. They’re a great company.”
Whatever the case, investors seem excited about the prospect of avoiding the controversy that some AI and design visualization platforms have attracted, in favor of supporting business-focused AI tools.
In a statement, Nikita Shamgunov, partner at Khosla Ventures, commented: “We are seeing a rapid and significant shift in the design space driven by generative AI. But until now, many generative AI design solutions have been aimed at consumers, rather than professionals who need degrees.” High on Control Recraft provides professional workflows such as vector images, style controls, and comprehensive content production, all supported by in-house built core templates.