Typeface, a generative AI startup focused on enterprise use cases, has acquired two companies just over a year after raising $100 million at a $1 billion valuation.
Typeface said on Monday that it has acquired Treat, a company that uses AI to create personalized photography products, and Narrato, an AI-powered content creation and management platform.
Treat and Narat: [Typeface’s] “We are committed to advancing multimodal capabilities,” the company said in a press release. [its] An end-to-end content lifecycle transformation vision.”
“Building on the foundation of our multimodal AI workflows, this acquisition adds leading AI technology and talent to further strengthen our visual and text capabilities,” Typeface said in a release. “The integration of these technologies will strengthen the entire Typeface portfolio.”
Founded in 2022 by former Adobe CTO Abhay Parasnis, Typeface offers tools to generate text and images, a fine-tuning engine to customize the AI to a brand's style, and integrations with third-party apps, software, and services. Typeface claims to prioritize brand governance and privacy more than its generative AI rivals. For example, Typeface trains dedicated AI models for each customer, ensuring that their assets and activities remain private.
So how do Treat and Narrato fit into this vision? Both were founded by founders with enterprise industry savvy, and not surprisingly, the startups offer products that appeal to the kinds of enterprise clients Typeface does business with.
New York-based Treat, the brainchild of Matt Osman and former Drizly CTO Hugh Hunter, uses the company's customer data to generate product images that incorporate elements known to work with specific target demographics. For example, if a fruit seller's data shows that young men prefer food ads that show people eating the product, Treat might create an ad that depicts someone biting into fruit.
Image generated by Treat. Image credit: Treat
Narrato, an Australian startup (coincidentally launching in 2022), sells access to an “AI content assistant” designed to help organizations achieve their in-house content creation and planning goals. As founder Sophia Solanki explained in an interview with TechCrunch in March of this year, Narrato customers also get collaboration and workflow tools, including templates for articles, video scripts, blogs, emails, social media content, art, and more.
Image credit: Narrato
Treat had raised at least $8.5 million from investors including Greylock prior to the acquisition, while Narrato had raised more than $1 million from AirTree Ventures, OfBusiness and serial entrepreneur Shreesha Ramdas.
Typeface did not disclose terms of either acquisition.
Treat and Narrato mark Typeface's third and fourth acquisitions. The company acquired AI photo and video editing suite TensorTour in January and chatbot app Cypher in May. It's unclear how much of an impact those acquisitions have had on Typeface's $165 million cash pile.