Recraft, the startup behind the cutting-edge image model that outperformed OpenAI’s DALL-E and Midjourney on a key industry benchmark last year, has secured $30 million in Series B funding. The round was led by Accel, with additional investments from Khosla Ventures and Madrona. Based in San Francisco, Recraft had previously raised $12 million in Series A funding, also led by Khosla, in 2024. The company has recently surpassed $5 million in annual recurring revenue (ARR) and boasts 4 million users.
Recraft gained attention in the AI space last year when its red_panda model, part of the company’s V3 series, topped the prestigious Artificial Analysis benchmark. The name red_panda was inspired by early user-generated images of the cute animal, according to Recraft’s founder and CEO, Anna Veronika Dorogush.
The company builds its own models from scratch, positioning itself as a competitor to other image generation giants like Midjourney, Adobe Firefly, Stable Diffusion, and Black Forest Labs. But what sets Recraft’s AI apart is its ability to generate images tailored for brands. The technology allows for precise placement of logos and the easy creation of marketing materials like brochures and posters that adhere to existing branding guidelines.
Competing with Design Tools Like Canva
Recraft’s AI excels where many other image generators struggle, particularly in the realm of brand-centric content creation. Dorogush noted that existing models often require extra editing to meet brand standards, while Recraft provides a more seamless solution. This places the startup in direct competition with design tools like Canva, which also offers AI-based branding capabilities.
Notably, Recraft stands out for having a solo female founder and CEO. Anna Veronika Dorogush founded the company after years of working in machine learning at Yandex, the Russian Google competitor, as well as previous roles at Google and Microsoft.
Before diving into AI, Dorogush worked as a professional model while earning a math and computer science degree from one of Russia’s top universities. While she eventually left the modeling industry, she credits that experience with teaching her the importance of focus and excellence over mere hard work.
“The biggest lesson from that time was that grinding isn’t everything,” Dorogush said. “Now when building a company, I know that to succeed, we have to be excellent at what’s mission-critical. In our case, building models is very important. So we’ve put all the effort into excelling at this.”
