Soona Co., a product photography services business dually based in Denver and Minneapolis, said this week it has acquired Vienna-based Zerolens and its generative AI virtual photo studio product Mokker.ai.
Soona CEO and co-founder Liz Giorgi said in an email that the deal was mix of equity and cash; terms weren't disclosed.
Founded in 2019, Zerolens' chief product is Mokker.ai, which creates automated backgrounds for existing product shots. Given a picture of a couch on a basic white background, for example, the software could generate a variety of room designs around it.
Giorgi said Soona was introduced to Zerolens when the companies worked together last year on a pilot partnership to test the value of generative AI within Soona's own service, which provides product shots for customers' e-commerce sites.
"Initial tests yielded the best results of all the AI pilots we ran in 2023," Giorgi said.
Combining the two platforms, she said, is a natural extension of generative AI tech into product photography, a market that Giorgi said was a natural fit for the technology.
"While there is a lot of noise about AI, we felt that Mokker represented an opportunity to add true value with AI to brands," she said.
Soona users now have access to Mokker.ai's technology for a trial period; it will later switch to a $13-per-month subscription. (Mokker AI users still have access to their accounts.) Five Mokker.ai employees will join Soona, establishing a European presence for the company, whose co-founders are currently in Denver and Minneapolis.
Soona, which closed a $10.2 million Series A funding round in 2021 and a $35 million Series B funding round in 2022, currently works with about 20,000 brands. The Zerolens deal could expand that significantly; the companies said Mokker.ai is already used by over 350,000 brands.
Last year, Soona also launched an analytics platform, called Soona Score, that tells clients how their images are performing online.
