Trying to keep up with the different models you can now use AI to build content? A startup Crea This is a specialized solution to this problem for designers and other visual ideas, and has now raised $83 million for a platform, which it believes will make the task of working with Generative AI more smooth.
San Francisco-based Krea has built a “unified” platform that provides tools for multiple models, as well as a custom interface designed to make queries and subsequently sent to edits to those models is very easy and easier to customize for users.
Krea quietly built a user base that included creators of confusing AI, Loop earbuds, Pixar, Lego and Samsung, today announced it has raised $83 million in funding. TechCrunch learned from sources close to transactions that are currently worth $500 million, and the currency is $500 million.
Krea’s funding was first announced today that the total of $83 million is actually a few: the latest, Series A, totaling $47 million; prior to that, Preseed/Seed and Series A were $3 million and $33 million, respectively.
Bain Capital leads the latest round. Other major investors in the startup include Andreessen Horowitz and Abstract Ventures.
From Creativity to Artificial Intelligence Creator
Krea is the creativity of Victor Perez (CEO) and Diego Rodriguez (CTO) that they met ten years when they were still students in Barcelona, Spain. Both consider themselves to be creatives and creators – especially Perez in musical performance and production, and Rodriguez in art – but they have always been interested in technical subjects.
“I like physics and mathematics and problems, and challenged my mind,” Perez recalled.
The degree of introduction to each other is for the engineering of visual systems, and Perez attracted interest in audio. Rodriguez is visually. They quickly became friends, and Perez attributed Rodriguez to his interest in AI.
They are not the only ones. That was 2015, and even before the generative AI boom ten years later, it was the moment of artificial intelligence formation. It was Openai’s year Establish; and start-ups work early on content created by AI Gain attention.
After their undergraduate degree, the two entered the world of work, each becoming an AI researcher. Rodriguez eventually applied to return to graduate school and received a scholarship from the King of Spain to attend Cornell. Perez followed and received the same scholarship and appeared one semester later.
But it turns out that Perez ended up staying at Cornell for one day in total.
Why? He said he was already considering becoming an early version of Krea before this move. Excitedly, the day he landed in New York, his thoughts were close to Rodriguez. Rodriguez jumped in with his feet, and the two dropped out of school to build their startup – the Spanish King and his fellowship were cursed.
Crossing the leap
Currently, Krea is solving a huge market gap. In short, the world was quickly overwhelmed by Genai tools, which generally brought some problems for average designers in terms of visual models.
Designers are not timely engineers, and do not want to get into trouble in the technical process of verbal AI inquiries. Designers are generally not interested in keeping up with updates to the latest models and identifying which models are more effective (or less) for the goals they are trying to achieve.
“Every model will be quickly jumped by another model,” said Aaref Hilaly, partner at Bain Ventures. “If you are a creator and want to use these models…it makes sense to have layers like Krea on all models and provide value for the creators. They are getting the latest models with a good user experience.”
The founders of Krea believe that creators work best when using software that understands their sensitivity. Designers are creative and they will attract software that helps them in the creative process.
“There are a lot of companies focusing on replacing creative workflows,” Perez said. “But we think creativity isn’t automated. We are giving people tools to be more creative, able to focus more on ideas and be able to use this new creative medium.”
And the platform is set to this. Users can enter ideas for the image they want to create. Krea then handled the idea, and Krea chose behind the scenes the model it thought could provide the best results for the user based on the request. That could be one model or multiple models. The user can then edit and tailor the resulting selections to further refine them.
The idea of a “one-stop shop” is not entirely original: Poe from Quora, for example, is approaching the same idea of generating AI responses based on text. But Krea’s ability to modify images is a unique feature it considers, which helps keep the creator’s vision and talent in a mix.
“Why can’t it continue [AI-generated] Images, then click and drag and drop something, or take out something,” Rodriguez asked. “That’s how the painter works. ”
Perez said the company’s tools cover still images and video and are working to expand its platform to cover tools for audio and music generation. The funding will also be used to build more enterprise features: so far, the product has actually been suitable for serving individuals and small teams.
“Krea expands human creativity with a product,” Andreessen Horowitz general partner Anish Acharya said in a statement to TechCrunch. “They built a platform that moves at the best AI research speed, but feels intuitive from day one.” This combination is very rare, which is why we are very excited about what will happen in the future. ”
