London Startup Exactly AI Raises $4.3M To Help Artists Scale Art With AI
Exactly AI is designed to help artists and illustrators leverage AI without losing control over their creations.
In an era where visual artists face the dual challenges of maintaining creative control and combating the misuse of AI, Exactly.ai offers a novel solution. This London-based startup has recently raised $4.3 million in a seed funding round, aiming to empower artists with AI tools to enhance and scale their work while retaining full ownership.
Exactly.ai’s seed funding round was led by Speedinvest, with additional participation from InReach Ventures, Cornerstone VC, GuruDev Capital, and several angel investors. According to a news report by Techcrunch, the total funding raised stands at $4.3 million, reflecting strong investor confidence in the startup's innovative approach to merging AI with artistic creativity.
Founded in 2022 by Tonia Samsonova, a former journalist with a successful exit to her name, Exactly.ai is designed to help artists and illustrators leverage AI without losing control over their creations. Samsonova explained the startup’s core mission:
“We enable artists, people who can draw, and illustrators to train their own AI on their artwork. They then get an algorithm that can generate images in their own style. This algorithm belongs to them and all the inferences belong to them.”
Exactly.ai allows artists to train AI models using their artwork, creating personalized algorithms replicating their unique styles. This approach ensures that artists retain legal ownership of their creations while significantly increasing their productivity. The AI-generated images can be sold or licensed to clients such as media outlets and advertising agencies.
Exactly.ai’s subscription-based business model allows artists to use the platform to increase their output and income. Samsonova highlighted the startup’s competitive edge over platforms like Upwork and Fiverr:
“We make money because illustrators who have commercial practices are able to serve more demand. They pay a subscription fee to us, and they quadruple their income.”
Exactly.ai combines foundational models from Picsart with its proprietary algorithms to generate images in the artists' styles. The platform benefits from a robust dataset provided by its 40,000 registered users, who have uploaded several million images. Additionally, Exactly.ai incorporates over a million pieces of open art data from museums, all CC0 licensed, to enhance the quality and diversity of the generated artwork.
