JJ Fiasson (Leonardo.Ai)
Aussie start-up Leonardo.Ai has raised A$47 million (US$31 million) from investors for its generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) content production platform.
The investor lineup includes Blackbird, Side Stage Ventures, Smash Capital, TIRTA Ventures, Gaorong Capital and Samsung Next.
The software-as-a-service (SaaS) company launched late last year, providing an image generation service to create concepts, with examples including video game characters and worlds, advertising media, fashion lines and architectural designs.
Since December last year, it has amassed 7 million users worldwide who are creating 4.5 million images a day and have generated over 700 million images in total.
Additionally, users can save, edit and build multiple assets in the same style and feature set so concepts can be used multiple times. Users can also custom-build and fine-tune their own AI models for image generation, with over 470,000 models already trained.
“From our initial uptake, it’s clear that creators see the power of our platform to support the creative process. This new funding round will help us continue to build out our tech and team to empower creativity for millions around the world,” said Leonardo.Ai co-founder and CEO JJ Fiasson.
The startup is already working with creators across industries such as video games, entertainment, fashion design, advertising and architecture.
The company is also launching its primary enterprise offering, introducing collaborative tools for teams and private cloud infrastructure. Enterprise users have access to their production APIs, allowing companies to build infrastructure on top of Leonardo.Ai’s platform. It also allows users to build purpose-driven AI models that cater to specific needs, such as the brand and style guidelines of an advertising agency’s client. Additionally, Leonardo.Ai is also establishing a copyright shield to provide indemnity to commercial clients.
Leonardo.Ai has also welcomed two new senior hires over the last several months with Donna Thoma as chief of staff in December and Ellie Miller as chief people officer in October.
Both have extensive backgrounds working in high-growth startups in Australia and abroad and will help Leonardo.Ai grow its team as it continues to scale.
