Earlier this week, a new generative AI image startup called Ideogram, founded by former Google Brain researchers, launched with $16.5 million in seed funding led by a16z and Index Ventures.
Another image generator? Don’t we have enough to choose from between Midjourney, OpenAI’s Dall-E 2, and Stability AI’s Stable Diffusion? Well, Ideogram has a major selling point, as it may have finally solved a problem plaguing most other popular AI image generators to date: reliable text generation within the image, such as lettering on signs and for company logos.
The company offers a number of preset image generation styles on its web app at ideogram.ai, including one labeled “typography,” which renders lettering in different colors, fonts, sizes and styling. Other preset styles include 3D rendering, cinematic, painting, fashion, product, illustration, conceptual art, ukiyo-e and others. You can select multiple styles at once and apply them all.
Ideogram is already available for signup in beta. And its Discord server and web app are already filled with examples of people generating lettering and images with lettering that are impressive compared to the current state-of-the-art (though not always entirely accurate) options.
However, Ideogram also lacks some of the other features available on rival image generators like zoom out/outpainting, and its results were less consistent in our tests. It even had difficulty rendering its own name, “Ideogram,” and was better at rendering more common words.
The company took the occasion of its launch and beta release to subtly highlight this feature with a post on X (formerly Twitter) including its mission statement, “help people become more creative,” generated using its tool.
We’re excited to announce the formation of Ideogram AI today! Our mission is to help people become more creative through Generative AI. https://t.co/ncHNI2vXfF pic.twitter.com/JtVAzpgpWl
Other investors in Ideogram include AIX Ventures, Golden Ventures, Two Small Fish Ventures, and industry experts Ryan Dahl, Anjney Midha, Raquel Urtasun, Jeff Dean, Sarah Guo, Pieter Abbeel, Mahyar Salek, Soleio, Tom Preston-Werner and Andrej Karpathy.
The Toronto-based startup has already earned shoutouts from fellow AI notables including David Ha, founder of Sakana AI and Margaret Mitchell, both of whom also worked for Google.
A new startup founded by former members of the Imagen team at Google Brain ? https://t.co/6kI4nw6GJ7
H/T @hardmaru: A new startup founded by former Imagen people at Google Brain?. I’m SUPER FASCINATED by this, as the “creativity” landscape in AI is one w so many paths forward. Let alone, there’s huge risk of paths that DECREASE creativity. So curious what they’re up to! https://t.co/hDlTQCAL2a
While it’s still early days for Ideogram, differentiating by offering a reliable typographic generator is a smart move and may help it appeal to graphic designers or those who would otherwise have to hire them to create imagery with eye-catching text baked in.
And other AI image generators are continuing to add new features, too. Just this week, Midjourney launched its new “vary region” feature to add, remove, and subtract portions of generated imagery.
Head over to our on-demand library to view sessions from VB Transform 2023. Register Here
Earlier this week, a new generative AI image startup called Ideogram, founded by former Google Brain researchers, launched with $16.5 million in seed funding led by a16z and Index Ventures.
Another image generator? Don’t we have enough to choose from between Midjourney, OpenAI’s Dall-E 2, and Stability AI’s Stable Diffusion? Well, Ideogram has a major selling point, as it may have finally solved a problem plaguing most other popular AI image generators to date: reliable text generation within the image, such as lettering on signs and for company logos.
The company offers a number of preset image generation styles on its web app at ideogram.ai, including one labeled “typography,” which renders lettering in different colors, fonts, sizes and styling. Other preset styles include 3D rendering, cinematic, painting, fashion, product, illustration, conceptual art, ukiyo-e and others. You can select multiple styles at once and apply them all.
Ideogram is already available for signup in beta. And its Discord server and web app are already filled with examples of people generating lettering and images with lettering that are impressive compared to the current state-of-the-art (though not always entirely accurate) options.
Event
VB Transform 2023 On-Demand
Did you miss a session from VB Transform 2023? Register to access the on-demand library for all of our featured sessions.
However, Ideogram also lacks some of the other features available on rival image generators like zoom out/outpainting, and its results were less consistent in our tests. It even had difficulty rendering its own name, “Ideogram,” and was better at rendering more common words.
The company took the occasion of its launch and beta release to subtly highlight this feature with a post on X (formerly Twitter) including its mission statement, “help people become more creative,” generated using its tool.
Other investors in Ideogram include AIX Ventures, Golden Ventures, Two Small Fish Ventures, and industry experts Ryan Dahl, Anjney Midha, Raquel Urtasun, Jeff Dean, Sarah Guo, Pieter Abbeel, Mahyar Salek, Soleio, Tom Preston-Werner and Andrej Karpathy.
The Toronto-based startup has already earned shoutouts from fellow AI notables including David Ha, founder of Sakana AI and Margaret Mitchell, both of whom also worked for Google.
While it’s still early days for Ideogram, differentiating by offering a reliable typographic generator is a smart move and may help it appeal to graphic designers or those who would otherwise have to hire them to create imagery with eye-catching text baked in.
And other AI image generators are continuing to add new features, too. Just this week, Midjourney launched its new “vary region” feature to add, remove, and subtract portions of generated imagery.
VentureBeat’s mission is to be a digital town square for technical decision-makers to gain knowledge about transformative enterprise technology and transact. Discover our Briefings.
Author: Carl Franzen
Source: Venturebeat
Reviewed By: Editorial Team
