ClipDrop is leveraging Machine Learning to revolutionize the way product photos are created.
ClipDrop, a machine learning-powered photo editing app, announced the close of a $1,5M seed round to grow its research and product development team. The application empowers users to create professional product visuals on their phones, without the need for cumbersome editing, as machine learning technology takes care of background removal and image processing.
While eleven steps are typically required to take a picture from a device and transfer it to a desktop for manual editing, ClipDrop brings this number down to just two and provides a high-quality and accurately cut-out image ready for immediate use. This leaner and automated workflow amounts to a drastic gain in time and efficiency for users, in particular sellers on online marketplaces. Five million clips have been captured in the last six months alone, with significant growth potential in the eCommerce and marketplace sector.
By applying machine learning to photo-editing, ClipDrop brings professional photography and design to millions of businesses. Large platforms too are looking for ways to streamline their inventory management processes and improve the quality of product visuals to fuel growth. ClipDrop serves both indy sellers and major retailers with integrations going live this year.
ClipDrop was initially the result of a week-long sprint by creative coder and former Google Lab Resident Cyril Diagne, as he was looking to apply machine learning to improve human-machine interaction. In March 2020, he posted a video entitled “AR Cut-Paste” on Twitter and GitHub, in which he uses a prototype to take a picture of a plant in his living room with his phone and transfer it to his desktop in a single motion. The project went viral, gathering five million views in a few days with hundreds of press clips following.
Looking to bridge research and real-world applications, Cyril Diagne, Jonathan Blanchet, and Damien Henry founded the company in July 2020 to develop the idea and bring ClipDrop to life. At the time, they were colleagues at Google, where Jonathan Blanchet deployed machine learning models at scale and Damien Henry led the Google Arts & Culture Lab after creating the Google Cardboard.
Following YCombinator’s W21 Demo Day, ClipDrop raised $1.5M from a select group of investors led by Air Street Capital and including SOMA, Kima Ventures angels, and business angels such as Maria Raga (CEO Depop, acquired by Etsy), Kaj Drobin, Siavash Ghorbani, and Carl Riviera (TicTail Founders, now VP at Shopify), Edward Miller (CEO Scape, acquired by Facebook), Namrata Ganatra (Ex-CTO Lambda School), Ian R. P. Hogarth (CEO SongKick), Matt Robinson (CEO Nested), Lisha Li (CEO Rosebud AI) and more.
Nathan Benaich, Founder and General Partner of Air Street Capital, says ClipDrop is one of the strongest demos he has ever seen. “Air Street Capital invests in early-stage founders solving major problems that are uniquely unlocked by AI-first technology products. We believe ClipDrop is a game-changer for eCommerce and creative design, moving the computational photography sector into an AI-first future. We are thrilled to be part of the company’s journey early on.”
“I see ClipDrop as a production studio for applied computational photography, a place where researchers, developers, and designers unite to build products used by millions of consumers and businesses every day’’ says Cyril Diagne. “This seed round is going to allow us to improve our products and tackle problems such as image regeneration, color harmonization, and realistic lighting that we are uniquely situated to solve for our users… Imagine a world where you can edit a photo as easily as an email: there is no doubt that we can offer a new paradigm to image editing.”
Opportunities
If you’re looking for an opportunity to join a fast growing team with high technical backgrounds, ClipDrop is hiring a Senior Frontend Engineer, an Android Engineer, and an IOS Engineer.
This award-winning start-up is always on the lookout for talented, passionate individuals to join them, feel free to contact them at founders@clipdrop.co.
