AI Photo Editing App 'PhotoRoom' Launches in Korea

[Photo by Photo Room]

Photoroom, the No.1 AI photo editing app in 180 countries, announced its entry into the Korean market.

Photoroom, which has surpassed 100 million global downloads, is a French startup that has received a total investment of 26.5 billion KRW. Major investors include angel investors affiliated with Facebook, Disney Plus, and Hugging Face, as well as Adjascent and Balderton Capital.

When users upload photos to the Photoroom app, AI automatically recognizes the product. The AI removes the background in just 3 seconds and creates a virtual background that best matches the product.

It also resizes product photos to fit each platform’s specifications and adds shadows. All these features can be processed in bulk editing mode, handling up to 150 images at once. Solo self-employed individuals who find it difficult to hire designers or outsourcing companies are expected to save significant time and costs.

This obsession with efficiency stems from the experience of CEO Matthieu Rouif. When he worked at GoPro, he often had to manually erase product photo backgrounds using Photoshop. At that time, he wondered, “Is there a simple way to remove photo backgrounds without manual work?” This led to the creation of Photoroom.

Thanks to the popularity among key users such as online sellers and self-employed individuals, Photoroom ranked 6th in global AI service usage in 2023 and achieved 65 billion KRW in ARR (annual recurring revenue) within three years of operation.

Photoroom CEO Matthieu Rouif said, “Korea is a country where one in five workers is self-employed, making the self-employed sector very significant.” He added, “Due to Korea’s fast trends and high standards of beauty, self-employed individuals have faced difficulties investing a lot of time and money in product photos. Using Photoroom eliminates the need to rent expensive equipment and locations for product photography.” He concluded, “We support the success of all self-employed individuals.”

He continued, “There is a saying that if you succeed in Korea, you can succeed anywhere in the world.” He added, “We will respond to the agile changes and demands of Korean users and prioritize developing and testing the latest features to further accelerate global growth.”

Meanwhile, Photoroom is expanding its connections with Korean self-employed individuals, including becoming a partner of the Korean self-employed community ‘Jangsa-ui Sin’ cafe.