PhotoRoom is able to generate marketing images for any product using stable diffusion
PhotoRoom is able to generate marketing images for any product using stable diffusion
November 7th, 2022
PhotoRoom – the award-winning global photo editing platform – has raised a $19 million Series A round, led by Balderton Capital. Angels from Facebook, Hugging Face and Disney+ also participated. Adjacent who led the seed round is also participating.
Founded in late 2019 by Matthieu Rouif and Eliot Andres, PhotoRoom has become the go-to editing app for consumers, entrepreneurs and businesses worldwide looking to elevate their online imagery. In a world where visual content dominates, and in which high-quality images boost conversions, and increase online engagement by as much as 352%, the need for high-quality, accessible editing tools is on the rise.
By leveraging deep learning to translate pixels into objects, PhotoRoom’s advanced AI allows users to edit images in seconds. They can remove, replace or blur backgrounds. The software can be used to delete unwanted features with a Magic Retouch tool.
Generative AI is the perfect fit for the company known to be the best at removing backgrounds. The company first contributed to accelerating stable diffusion open source project. Now, its latest feature, in beta, enables users to create marketing product photos from a single product photo and a short text description. Its million of merchants will be able to generate product visuals with any scene and accessories in a few minutes, an alternative to costly studio shooting which usually takes weeks and cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.
The firm also recently rolled out a web-based version of its award-winning software, which not only makes its professional tools even more accessible and easy-to-use, but, in a world-first, enables PhotoRoom users to collaborate on images. Entrepreneurs can do fast capture on the go from their smartphone to share on social network and finetune the details of the product photography on a bigger screen to list on their website. This consistency and collaboration between mobile and web is essential to small businesses to look pro. It explains why thousands of teams, including major marketplaces, already collaborate with PhotoRoom
Product photography is hard yet critical to business success. Bad photography can result in unsold inventory, listing rejections, poor advertising or even brand damage. But getting it right is no easy feat, and requires significant investment of both time and resources.
PhotoRoom’s own data shows that small businesses increase conversion rates by as much as 31% when using PhotoRoom’s tools to produce and share high-quality images. PhotoRoom user Jeff Strauss, director of image operations at Wolt, who previously build and operated photo studio around the globe for Amazon, said: “When I was at Amazon we required 1 image to list an item, this creates consistency while enhancing customer experience. Getting 100% coverage with images you are proud of is hard, it quickly becomes your brand identity and hiring a professional can become expensive. Right now, I believe we are seeing yet another revolution in photography, like the digital takeover in 2000 that killed Kodak and Polaroid. Why? We can now pair the smartphone high-end camera in our pocket with PhotoRoom magic editing tools. This is a game changer for e-commerce photography, allowing businesses to have more control over the cost and creation of the images that create their brand.”
In addition, PhotoRoom product and machine learning innovation have cut editing time by 10x for entrepreneurs, freeing them up to concentrate on more business critical tasks such as customer service, social promotion, shipping and stock management. Recently, a machine learning algorithm update gave back a year of time to the global user base in a week because it improved again the cutout accuracy at the first shot.
Original Photo
PhotoRoom Edited - Professional product photo with soft shadows and white background
PhotoRoom Edited - Lifestyle photo with a background generated with PhotoRoom AI
This dedication to accessibility, quality and collaboration means PhotoRoom’s growing platform goes beyond the low-quality, non-customisable and casual-use tools other companies are tacking onto existing software. PhotoRoom’s AI processes more than 3 million high-quality, and highly accurate images a day from a growing global user base. The app is currently available in 28 languages. Users range from Whitney Sanders, a top Depop seller in Texas with 12k items sold & 40k followers, to Marrie Classy, a Japanese small business owner selling curated clothing and accessories online. A further testament to just how globally accessible the software is.
The idea for PhotoRoom was conceived from Matthieu’s poor experiences with visual editing suites while sharing user stories as a product manager at GoPro. Since launch, the app has been downloaded more than 40 million times and has been profitable for the past two years. This is matched by an average rating of 4.7 out of 5 from more than 750,000 app reviews. Apple and Google have also named PhotoRoom among their Editor’s Pick, and Best Apps of 2021 respectively.