If you’ve ever bought a sofa on an online store, you might have noticed the beautiful homes featured in the background of product images. These photoshoots, showcasing furniture in styled settings, are not only time-consuming but also expensive. Furniture brands often invest heavily in these shoots, transporting pieces and renting attractive locations to create appealing visuals for their new collections.
The Birth of Presti
Recognizing the challenges faced by furniture companies, a French startup named Presti is transforming this process using generative AI. By leveraging AI technology, Presti turns a single product image into a series of realistic photographs, significantly cutting down the time and cost associated with traditional photoshoots.
Presti has already garnered significant attention, raising $3.5 million in a seed round led by Partech, with participation from several business angels. According to Nabil Toumi, Presti’s co-founder and CEO, the idea came from direct feedback from potential users.
“Very quickly, we picked up the phone and talked with 50 potential users,” Toumi told TechCrunch. “Everyone was saying the same thing. Creating product visuals took a very long time, cost a lot of money, and they didn’t have a simple solution for creating these photos. At the same time, it was the most important asset for brands to create a unique identity and sell online.”
Understanding the Furniture Industry’s Pain Points
Initially, Presti did not focus solely on the furniture industry. However, it soon became apparent that furniture companies had specific and significant pain points.
“For a photoshoot, they needed to rent a nice house, transport products, and handle high logistics costs,” Toumi explained. “These photo shoots were planned months in advance and ended up costing hundreds of thousands, even millions of euros a year.”
To address these issues, Presti utilizes Stable Diffusion XL as its foundational model. This AI model has been retrained and fine-tuned specifically for product imagery in the furniture industry. Initially, the team used a standard version of Stable Diffusion XL but quickly encountered problems.
“You’re going to have legs added to your sofa, and the backrest will be distorted,” Toumi noted. The perspective was also an issue. For example, the wall behind the sofa needs to be parallel to the sofa for the image to look realistic.
The Power of a Specialized Dataset
A critical aspect of Presti’s success lies in its specialized dataset. The company has accumulated over 75,000 ultra-high-quality images of furniture. This extensive dataset allows Presti to train its model effectively, ensuring the generated images are both realistic and specific to the furniture industry.
“We use this dataset to reinforce the learning process for a specific use case – creating high-quality product images for furniture,” Toumi said.
Presti’s capabilities extend beyond simple background generation. Customers can add accessories to their product images. For example, when generating photos for a new sofa, users can add cushions. These cushions will cast realistic shadows on the sofa, making them look naturally integrated into the scene rather than digitally added.
Enhancing Product Variations
Furniture brands often offer multiple variations of the same model with different textures and colors. Presti aims to streamline this process as well. Although still a work in progress, the company hopes that its tool will allow customers to easily swap materials, making it simpler to release new product variations.
This innovative approach has caught the attention of mid-sized furniture companies and larger players in the industry. Presti has formed a strategic partnership with Maisons du Monde, one of France’s largest furniture retailers.
Investors and Future Prospects
Presti’s groundbreaking approach has attracted a host of investors, including Thibaud Elzière, Maxime Brousse, Abou Laraki, Rémi Lemonnier, and Julien Hirth. The investment from Partech and these business angels highlights the potential seen in Presti’s technology and its applicability to the broader market.
Presti’s journey from inception to its current status showcases the potential of generative AI in transforming traditional business practices. By addressing specific industry challenges and leveraging a specialized dataset, Presti is paving the way for more efficient and cost-effective product image creation.
Key Highlights of Presti’s Approach
Generative AI Technology: Utilizes Stable Diffusion XL, retrained for furniture imagery.
Specialized Dataset: Over 75,000 high-quality images used for model training.
Cost Efficiency: Reduces the need for expensive photoshoots and logistics.
Realistic Enhancements: Ability to add accessories with realistic shadows.
Product Variation: Plans to simplify material and color swaps for product variations.
Presti’s innovative approach to furniture photography brings numerous benefits. By leveraging generative AI technology, specifically Stable Diffusion XL, Presti can create realistic product images without the need for traditional photoshoots. This AI model, retrained with over 75,000 high-quality furniture images, ensures that the generated visuals are highly accurate and industry-specific. This specialized dataset allows Presti to produce images that reflect true-to-life details, making them indistinguishable from photos taken in actual homes. The cost reduction is significant as it eliminates the need for renting locations, transporting furniture, and other logistical expenses associated with photoshoots. Additionally, Presti’s technology enables the realistic addition of accessories, such as cushions, which cast authentic shadows and blend seamlessly into the scene. Moreover, Presti aims to simplify the process of creating product variations by allowing easy swaps of materials and colors, making it more convenient for brands to introduce new designs and textures. This combination of features not only enhances the quality of product imagery but also streamlines the workflow for furniture companies, providing a more efficient and cost-effective solution for their marketing needs.
By leveraging generative AI, Presti is not only reducing costs and logistical challenges but also enabling furniture brands to create unique, high-quality visuals with ease. This innovation represents a significant shift in how product imagery can be created and utilized in the furniture industry, setting a new standard for efficiency and creativity.
