Botika Secures $8M Funding to Revolutionize Fashion Photography with AI-Generated Models

AI Company Aims to Remove Photographers and Models From Fashion

Israeli artificial intelligence (AI) company Botika secured $8 million in seed funding to help it further develop its generative AI technology that can turn a simple product shot of clothing into an entire fashion shoot, complete with AI-generated human models. Clothing designers and retailers can capture images of their products, upload them to Botika, and then select an AI-generated model and background for their new "real world" product photos. The company, now $8 million richer, says it can help companies reduce "visual production costs" by 90% and improve time to market by a factor of three. Of course, it reduces costs and improves turnaround time because it eliminates actual people from the equation, including fashion and commercial photographers and models. If a company has photos of its clothing on a person, it can also use Botika to fundamentally change the model's appearance, changing their size, shape, and skin tone. Shoppers rely heavily upon images of clothing on people to make buying decisions, and Botika argues that its AI platform makes selling clothing more accessible, especially for smaller online-only fashion brands. "The production cost of a photography shoot for e-commerce can range anywhere from tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of dollars per shoot," Botika says. "Botika's AI Generated Fashion Model addresses this critical pain point for fashion brands and breaks down the barrier to high-quality, on-brand images at a manageable cost and timeline." Thanks to its new injection of funding, Botika has launched a new mobile app, putting the company's AI-Generated Fashion Model tools "directly into the hands of users." The app allows brands to access "their own AI-powered virtual studio." Botika includes a "diverse" range of AI-generated models, including people of varying appearances, ethnicities, sizes, and ages. The AI models are generated in-house by Botika, presumably to overcome some of the biases inherent to generative AI. Many photographers are concerned about generative AI's impact on their careers and livelihoods. Generative AI has already had indelible effects on product photography, and now it is coming for fashion a significant subset of commercial product photography. It is not just smaller brands that have begun dabbling in AI, either. In 2023, Levi Strauss & Co. dipped its toes into generative AI to, as it says, "increase diversity," a move PetaPixel called "tone-deaf." In any event, companies like Botika are growing rapidly. Botika says it has increased its revenue by nine times and its customer base by a factor of 11 in the past year. The company is responding to a demand that exists and exploiting a growing market, as many companies are keen to cut costs as quickly as possible, and that means ditching real photography and not hiring actual human models.

Botika raises $8M to change fashion photography with AI-generated fashion models

Join our daily and weekly newsletters for the latest updates and exclusive content on industry-leading AI coverage. Learn More Botika, a started focused on AI-generated fashion models, has raised $8 million and launched its new mobile iOS app. While human fashion models are not going to like this, Botika said that it empowers online clothing companies of all sizes with its AI-generated models that can make their clothing look good. The app, alongside the latest advancements to Botika's generative AI platform, helps fashion brands create high-quality, on-model images for e-commerce. In addition to this announcement, Botika has successfully closed an $8 million seed funding round, co-led by Stardom, and Secret Chord Ventures, with participation from Seedcamp. This funding will drive continued product innovation and support the company's expansion in the fashion industry, where it has achieved remarkable growth - multiplying its revenue by nine times and its customer base by eleven times in the past year. With this significant infusion of capital and the launch of the mobile app, Botika aims to provide an accessible, cost-effective solution to enable online clothing brands to enhance their visual content, improve sales, and reduce production costs. Botika's unique AI technology is designed to aid brands in seamlessly transforming basic product images into professional, studio-quality shots, complete with AI generated models and backgrounds that reflect each brand's aesthetic, with the company also training its own custom foundation models. More than half of shoppers rely on brand or retailer-provided imagery when deciding whether or not to purchase a piece of clothing. Yet, the production cost of a photography shoot for ecommerce can range anywhere from tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of dollars per shoot, the company said. Botika's AI generated fashion model addresses this critical pain point for fashion brands and breaks down the barrier to high-quality, on-brand images at a manageable cost and timeline. Botika's platform allows brands to create lifelike, visually appealing images within minutes to engage customers and boost sales. The new Botika mobile app brings the platform's powerful AI generated fashion model tools directly into the hands of users, allowing fashion brands to create stunning, on-model product photos anytime, anywhere. With the app, brands gain access to their own AI-powered virtual studio, drastically reducing time-to-market by streamlining image production without sacrificing quality. This mobile functionality also includes Botika's new support for flat lays and packshots, expanding the brand's capabilities beyond its original focus on on-model photography. Responding to demand from mobile users on e-commerce platforms like Shopify and others, Botika said it designed the app to enable end-to-end, professional-quality photo creation right from the phone. Brands can now shoot, edit and sync images seamlessly to their online stores, accelerating time-to-market while reducing costs and maintaining quality. "Converting browsing shoppers to buying shoppers relies heavily on engaging and accurate product imagery, yet every photo is not created equal," said Eran Dagan, CEO at Botika, in a statement. "As consumer expectations heighten and e-commerce grows more competitive through social selling, smaller online brands and boutiques are at risk of losing profits to photography costs or lackluster images that receive less engagement and fewer sales. With the release of Botika's mobile iOS app, we're putting the power of Generative AI at our customers' fingertips, empowering brands with the tools needed to bring their creative visions to life and better compete in a challenging online fashion market." The recent funding and product innovations mark a major milestone for Botika, with plans to build on this momentum throughout 2025.