BetterPic raises $2.5M after bootstrapping to $3M revenue

Hey everyone! Ricardo here, founder of BetterPic. I'm sitting in our Ghent office at 11 PM, probably drinking way too much coffee, but I couldn't wait until tomorrow to share this news with you all.

So... we just closed a $2.5 million seed round. 🎉

I know, I know - another funding announcement, right? But honestly, this one feels different because of how we got here. Let me tell you the real story, the messy bits and all.

The Bootstrap Hustle (Or: How We Almost Went Broke Three Times)

Eighteen months ago, Miguel (my co-founder) and I were basically two guys with laptops, a crazy idea about AI photography, and exactly zero external funding. We weren't being noble about bootstrapping - we literally couldn't raise money at the time because our idea sounded insane to most investors.

"Wait, you want to create professional headshots from selfies? And then... AI fashion shoots with real models? Are you sure this isn't just a fancy filter app?" Yeah, we heard that a lot.

But here's the thing - we were obsessed with making it work. We spent months locked in my apartment, surviving on pizza and the belief that there had to be a better way to create professional photos. The traditional photography industry is amazing, but it's also expensive and time- consuming. A proper fashion shoot? We're talking $10K to $50K easily.

The numbers that kept us going:

We've now generated over 32 million professional photos
Hit $3.2M in projected annual revenue - completely bootstrapped
Serving everyone from Fortune 500 companies to individual creators
Growing double-digits month over month for the past year

The craziest part? We were profitable from month 6. Not because we're financial geniuses (trust me, we're not), but because we had to be. When you can't raise money, you learn to make money real quick.

Building the Future of Photography (With Real Humans at the Center)

Here's what gets me excited every morning: we're not just another AI company trying to replace humans. With BetterPic, we started with AI headshots - take a few selfies, get professional portraits. Simple, effective, and people loved it.

But then we realized something bigger was happening. The fashion industry was watching. Brands were asking: "Can you do this for our products? Our campaigns?"

That's when BetterStudio was born. And here's the part I'm most proud of - we became the world's first platform to integrate real models with AI technology.

We're not creating fake people; we're creating digital twins of real models, under our BetterModels label, with proper legal frameworks and ethical guidelines.

One of our angel investors, Severine Nijs from Jackie Lee Modeling Agency, put it perfectly: 'We're not replacing models. We're creating more access for creators, brands, and individuals to participate in fashion without traditional gatekeepers.

She's actually building her own digital twin through our platform. How cool is that?

Why Europe's Moment in AI is Just Beginning

You know what I love about this funding round? It's led by MOC Capital and Shilling VC - investors who get that Europe isn't just copying Silicon Valley anymore. We're building our own path.

Marcin from MOC Capital said something that stuck with me: "There's a real changing of the guard happening in AI, and it's Europe's time." While the US giants are building foundational models like ChatGPT, we're solving specific, complex problems with tailor-made solutions.

Our angel investors read like a who's who of European tech and fashion: Louis Jonckheere (Showpad founder), Matthias Geeroms (Lighthouse), Joris Van Der Gucht (Ravical), and several others who believed in our vision when it was still pretty rough around the edges.

What's Next? (Spoiler: It's Going to Be Wild)

Okay, so why raise money when we're already profitable and growing like crazy? Great question.

We're doubling down on our B2B recurring offerings. Think enterprise- grade AI photography solutions that integrate seamlessly into existing workflows. We're talking about transforming how fashion brands, e- commerce companies, and marketing agencies create visual content.

The $82 billion market we're addressing isn't just about replacing expensive photoshoots (though we can reduce costs by up to 100x). It's about democratizing access to high-quality visual content. A small fashion startup in Barcelona should have the same visual capabilities as a major brand in Paris.

Here's what we're building next:

Enterprise BetterStudio: Full-scale AI photography solutions for brands that need hundreds or thousands of product images monthly.
BetterModels Expansion: Growing our network of verified AI model twins, with even stricter ethical and legal frameworks.
API Integration: Letting developers and platforms integrate our AI photography capabilities directly into their products.
European Expansion: We're based in Belgium, but our vision is global. Starting with the EU market, then... well, let's see how far this rocket ship goes.

The Real Talk Section

Look, I'd be lying if I said this journey was easy. There were moments when we wondered if we were completely delusional. When competitors with millions in funding launched similar products. When technical challenges made us question everything.

But you know what kept us going? Our users. Getting messages from freelancers who could finally afford professional headshots. Fashion brands reducing their photoshoot costs by 90% while maintaining quality. Models expanding their careers through digital twins.

As I told our investors: "Achieving multi-million dollar revenue without external capital is extremely rare, and it's a testament to our focus on product-market fit, sustainable growth, and customer obsession."

We built BetterPic to be profitable from day one, and with this investment, we're scaling while maintaining those strong margins and customer success metrics.

Thank You (No, Really)

To everyone who's been part of this journey - our early users who gave us feedback, our team who believed in the vision, our investors who took a bet on two guys with a crazy idea about AI photography - thank you.

To the photography industry folks who might be reading this: we're not here to replace you. We're here to expand the pie, to make professional photography accessible to more people and businesses. The best photographers will always have their place; we're just democratizing access to great visual content.

And to other European founders who might be reading this while questioning their own crazy ideas: keep going. Bootstrap as long as you can. Get profitable. Build something people actually want. The funding will follow when the time is right.

This is just the beginning. We're building the future of photography, one AI-generated image at a time, with real humans at the center of everything we do.

Want to see what we're building? Check out BetterPic for AI headshots and BetterStudio for AI fashion photography. And if you're a model interested in creating your digital twin, BetterModels is where the magic happens.

Now, back to building. We've got a lot of work to do.

Cheers,

Ricardo

Ricardo Ghekiere is the founder and CEO ofBetterPic, a European AI imaging startup that has bootstrapped to $3.2M in annual revenue. Based in Ghent, Belgium, BetterPic is building the future of professional photography through AI technology that keeps humans at the center.

Contact: press@betterpic.io | Website: www.betterpic.io