Imagen Co-founders Yoav Chai, Yotam Gil, and Ron Oren (company pic)
ImagenAI (known as Imagen), an Israeli startup that provides AI-powered editing solutions for professional photographers, raised $30 million in an investment led by global growth investor Summit Partners with participation from existing investor NFX.
Founded in 2020 by CEO Yotam Gil, Yoav Chai and Ron Oren, Imagen says that its mission is to change the photography industry with AI-powered solutions that “modernize the post-production workflow, enabling professional photographers to plan better, work less, earn more, and focus on the creative aspects of their job.” Thousands of professional photographers, boasts the company, trust Imagen to accelerate their editing process so they can spend more time doing what they love.
The initial idea for the business originated from one of the co-founder’s months-long wait for his wedding photos. In speaking with numerous photographers, he uncovered a clear pain point felt across the broader industry: while advancements in digital photography had increased the volume of images captured and stored, post-production work was still largely repetitive and time-consuming, estimated at almost two hours for each hour of shooting time. Because each photographer has their own unique style, the process could not be automated generically with existing tools. With backgrounds in machine learning and computer science, the Imagen team recognized the opportunity to dramatically improve this workflow.
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“We built Imagen to make photographers’ lives easier. Our AI-powered solution is designed specifically to automate the tedious aspects of post-production work, allowing each artist to maintain and evolve his or her own creative style,” said Yotam Gil, co-founder and CEO of Imagen. “Imagen essentially creates time for our photographers, allowing them to focus on the artistry of their work and deliver a better experience for their customers.”
Imagen boasts that its end-to-end AI technology creates an individual profile based on a photographer’s previous work and unique creative style. The more photos uploaded, with more diverse scenes and lighting conditions, says the company, the better the AI can capture each editing style and accurately predict dozens of editing parameters. Imagen’s solution can save up to 90% of post-production time and turns many hours of manual work to seconds, while preserving the personal style of each user. The profile evolves and learns with the user over time, allowing better accuracy and consistency in applying each photographer’s style to new photos ingested into Imagen.
