🖌 Investing in Leonardo.Ai
We’re delighted to share that Side Stage Ventures has invested in Leonardo Ai’s Series A round alongside Blackbird, Smash Capital & Samsung Next.
This is the second time we’ve invested in Leonardo having participated in their seed round earlier on this year.
We first met Leonardo.Ai back in February and it’s been a privilege to watch and support the team as they build and execute at a phenomenal pace.
Leonardo Ai provides creators with a new way to ideate, conceptualise and create anything from gaming characters to entire gaming worlds, advertising media, fashion lines, architectural designs and beyond. It has amassed over 7 million users worldwide, who are creating 4.5 million images a day, and they have grown their Discord community to the third largest globally with almost 2 million members as creators look to Generative AI to accelerate their creativity.
The power of creativity to change the world
At Side Stage Ventures, we believe in the power of creativity to change the world. It is not just the rapid development and evolution of technology that will push mankind forward but, of even more importance, is the creativity and ingenuity of the creatives that are driving that change.
Each generational shift in technology has been led by the creative industries. The humble iPod that allowed you to carry 1,000 songs in your pocket was the precursor to the iPhone (an iPod, a Phone & an internet communication device) that created the Mobile revolution. Cloud computing found its first real use case supporting video streaming — Netflix being one of AWS’s first and most important customers. Blockchain and cryptography was the domain of financiers and techies before Digital Art & NFT’s led to a whole new level of consumer engagement.
And now, as we see this generational shift and opportunity that AI presents, we wholeheartedly believe that creativity, design and art will be one of the first industries to truly embrace this transformation.
An AI-powered paintbrush
Leonardo Ai is building a whole new type of AI-powered paintbrush that empowers and accelerates a new generation of creative talent. From amateurs to experts, anyone can truly unleash their creative talent — design, create and imagine new worlds.
When we first met Leonardo Ai, we were excited by the extraordinary quality of the product built in a matter of months, beautiful user experience and the early traction and feedback from their initial customers.
Since that initial investment they have exceeded our expectations (and their own forecasts) in terms of user growth, monetisation and product development.
Organic Virality & Customer Love
From very early on in Leonardo’s life they’ve had phenomenal viral growth and excitable fans and customers. Whether it be the totally organic YouTube videos created by users, a rapidly growing Discord channel that now sits at the third biggest globally or the equally passionate Facebook groups there is significant evidence of real fan engagement and organic growth.
And, when we spoke to their early customers, from New York to Tel Aviv; Games Developers who had been using the platform for a matter of months were raving about the quality of output, the product velocity and the new found efficiencies across their teams.
Epic Product
The product itself is exceptional. We would highly recommend you try it yourself: http://leonardo.ai. It is rare, as an early stage investor, to see such a high quality finished product at such an early stage in a company’s life.
The first time we used an early version of the product back in February 2023, just 6 weeks after launch, we were blown away by the slick creation experience that could bring to life incredible, original imagery and slick user experience. Since then, the product velocity has been intense. The team have launched several new features to enhance the creative process including AI Canvas Editor, Alchemy, Prompt Magic and PhotoReal as well as an Enterprise grade API product, an iOS app and just last week the team shipped Live Canvas. All these with a relentless and hyper focus on user experience, productivity and quality of output.
Experienced Founders
Founder & CEO, JJ Fiasson is an experienced entrepreneur who has previously built and exited two successful technology businesses. His most recent business, Raini Studios, was a Game Studio which he co-founded in 2021 and where he first started using AI to create assets in the game development process.
JJ’s background encapsulates alot of what we look for in a founder — grit, hustle and a proven ability to execute combined with a deep understanding and passion for the problem space.
We couldn’t be more excited to double down on our partnership with JJ and the entire Leonardo team as they continue to build out new tools to create the future.
Get involved?
It’s still early in the Leonardo journey and if you haven’t already you should try it for yourself! Sign up, join the Discord or apply for one of the open roles.
Side Stage Ventures is a founder-led seed fund & community backing the top 1% of founders in Australia. 🇦🇺
If you are starting something new, would like to invest with us or are just as so damn excited about the future as we are please get in touch! You can find out more or reach me via Twitter, LinkedIn or email.
