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When I first met Krea co-founders Victor Perez and Diego Rodriguez in 2023, the industry was scrambling to understand the a-bomb of generative AI. But inside their work-live condo in Hayes Valley, San Franciscodecorated with an Eiffel Tower built from La Croix cansthe duo painted a confident vision of the future: One where they could build a platform not just about generating AI media, but a toolset to offer an artisan level manipulation of this new technology. They wanted to consolidate the world of AI models, then blur the bounds of media as we understand it, erasing the divisions between images, video, and sound in a new era powered by computational intelligence. In a world where you could suddenly create anything, Kreas core promise was one of controllabilityto be a platform to help you make something. While that sounded borderline naive in a visual world ruled by giants including Adobe, Figma, OpenAI, and Canva, two years and 20 million users later, Krea has closed a $43 billion Series B round led by Bain Capital Ventures. Following its Series A led by Andreessen Horowitz, the startup has now raised $83 million on a valuation of half a million dollars. I always think that we have been very lucky as founders, in being successful with the thing that we wanted to do since the beginning, says Perez in his first interview since the announcement. We had a hypothesis that turned out to be real, and it resonated with a lot of the community. On that side, I feel really grateful, he continues. On the other, weve just been working our asses off, just grinding nonstop. View this post on Instagram A post shared by KREA (@krea_ai) Kreas blitzkrieg product development cycle Today, Krea offers tools that let you paint in generative AI, use your webcam to feed a real time AI filter, and create images trained on your own artwork (to which you retain rights). Krea continues to ship new features every week, integrating the new models as fast as humanly possible (which usually means within just days or faster). Much of their work is done after midnight. That speed is key in an industry that rides hype cycle after hype cycle. When everyone wants to try the latest and greatest AI tools, integration feeds function and marketing at the same time. Victor Perez (left) and Diego Rodriguez (right) The industry is still nascent, hence chaotic. Over the next one, two, three, years, who knows? says Perez. So one core thing that you can expect from Krea is that we’re going to keep having a very rapid iterative cycle for bringing the latest technology in as soon as it’s available. That speed is also by design. Until the handshake deal on their Series B a few months ago, Krea was only a team of eight people (its now about doubled to 17). But Krea has been able to stay nimble because it didnt start in the AI industry by attempting to create its own mega models like Anthropic or OpenAIsyncing money and manpower into the core technology. Instead, its focused on the manipulation layer. Its value add is largely around UX. A lot of companies go bottoms up, and they try to first build the technology. They spend millions of dollars on training these AI models. And once they have them trained, and they can generate images or videos, they try to figure out a product for this technology, says Perez. That never resonated too much with us, and we have always been tops down. Theres an engineer urge to just rewrite from scratch, adds Rodriguez. It’s like, no, there’s a lot here that we can already use. By building tools instead of technology, Krea rapidly tests their own intuitions, and gets feedback on how theyre working from the community. View this post on Instagram A post shared by KREA (@krea_ai) Keeping a low cost footprint Krea has saved a lot of money by focusing on the implementation of existing technology rather than building their own out of the gate. Their $20/month subscription is profitable, and half of all their compute (the big expenditure) goes to new users who are testing Kreas tools for free. Between closing their series B and this interview months later, the money in Kreas account actually grew. Only more recently has the company been building optimizations with its own modelsrun on clusters of over 1,000 GPUs to serve its 750,000 weekly userswhich offers benefits ranging from speed to quality. Now, the company says its seeing clearer holes in the market, and so it will be launching its own research lab inside Krea focused on the one-two punch of AI aesthetics and controllability. The company will be using its series B funding to staff up this department and fund more AI model training (and, yes, move into official offices, too). View this post on Instagram A post shared by KREA (@krea_ai) Despite all of this investment into their proprietary technology, Krea does not want to moat off their service. Rodriguez recounts early Krea users who screenshared themselves using Photoshop in Kreaostensibly turning the Adobe interface into one big Krea generative tool. Suddenly you have everything that you used to with Photoshop, but with the power of AI, says Rodriguez. That sort of platform-in-a-platform remixing might make some companies queasy, but Krea doesnt see anything to gain in limiting the workflows of its creative users. You don’t want them to leave. But at the same time, if they make a very high quality 4K texture in Krea, I want them to take that texture to, say, Autodesk Maya. Because now that texture is in a movie. Pushing creativity in an industry built on memes When Kreas fundraising news went public last week, the world was still embroiled in a debate about OpenAIs latest model (GPT 4o), which countless scores of people used to create Studio Ghibli style images. For anyone who hates the very idea of generative AI, it was fuel on the fire, proof that these tools simply steal creativity and IP from others. View this post on Instagram A post shared by KREA (@krea_ai) But nobody was creating art, nor anything monetizable during this trend. They were making memes. Arguments of taste and ethics aside, Krea is specifically interested in enabling everything that comes after that first image is made. How do you edit it closer to your actual vision? How do you transform it into something else altogether? And their long term business plan is entirely about those ideas. View this post on Instagram A post shared by KREA (@krea_ai) We need to adapt to this new medium, because right now, we need to take for granted that generating these images is the floor, right? says Rodriguez. Generating these kinds of images is like the stroke of a pencil, and that’s and that’s how we should think about them. That said, Krea still sees GPT 4o as a piece of inspiration, because unlike earlier image models, it was the first that could actually reason, which is why it can understand a humans instructions so well. And in that technology, Perez suggests that you can squint a bit to see the future. We will see way more of that. Instructions are like the new codingSo the new creative tools are going to be coded through these instructions, says Perez. Were going to build models that are going to be like, 10x or 100x GPT4o. And they are going to be able to generate all sorts of things.
Category:
E-Commerce
In Los Angeles, the scars of recent wildfires are still visible. Small businesses are fighting to regain their footing. A trio of NBA legends are pitching in to help. Social Change Fund United (SCFU), founded in 2020 by Carmelo Anthony, Dwyane Wade, and Chris Paul, has teamed up with fintech platform Stackwell and the National Basketball Players Association to launch the Visionary Ventures Program. The pilot kicks off in L.A. with a clear goal: equip small business owners with the tools, resources, and capital they need to build sustainable operations. Through financial education, grant funding, and ongoing development support, Visionary Ventures merges access with action. The new program represents an evolution of SCFUs mission to address systemic inequality. The founders expect that Stackwells tech-driven approach to wealth-building will create a scalable model for impact thats rooted in the communities that need it most. To understand how this all came togetherand why nowFast Company talked with 2025 Hall of Fame inductee Carmelo Anthony. He discussed the devastation of the wildfires, his continued commitment to under-served communities, and how hes shaping his legacy beyond the game. Why was now the right time to partner with a fintech company like Stackwell? I just think its a very pivotal moment as we look at L.A. and those communities and try to help them rebuild, bringing more awareness to those wildfires and then providing support. Stackwell also has a proven track recordamazing with what theyre doing. How difficult was it for you seeing the devastation of those wildfires? Youre watching it unfold and continue to escalate and grow right in front of your eyes. The whole world was watching. You can feel that in your heart, and you feel it in your soul when youre watching something like that because everybody is affected. You should be asking yourself what you could do, what you should be doing. Thats how you should be thinking as opposed to thinking, You know, I cant do nothing. I think we do know that theres only so much that we can possibly do and we just have to play our part. What inspired you, Wade, and Paul to launch Social Change Fund United, and how does the Visionary Ventures Program fit into that mission? It started back in, I want to say, 2020. It was a real moment. We were watching a moment in society and our community, and our country, and its right in front of our faces, and the world was watching. It was a moment where I had to figure out, Damn, what do I want to do? And I think everyone was asking that same question. We just talked, came together, and we founded the Social Change Fund United. What we did was create a really clear vision on what we wanted to do on strategy, how do we advance equity, how do we advance social justice, criminal justice reform, strategic partnerships. We became very intentional in our outreach, our partnerships, and just the messages that are out there. It took something tragic to happen for usme, Dwayne, CPto really have a vision on what we wanted to do. What are some of the unique challenges of launching this kind of initiative right now, given the current political climate around issues related to social change? I think the most important thing is understanding what you understand, right? We cant do it all. The beauty is that we put ourselves in these spaces that we feel can have the most impact and influence and provide the most help, because we cant do everything. We cant attack every kind of issue on every pillar. So everybody who is involved with this at SCFU, we actually have experience in these lanes and our own lane that were actually tackling. Whatever that topic or issue is, were focused on that. We come together on a lot of things, but everybody has different interests and things that resonate more with them as individuals. We try to allow everybody to do what they want to do as long as its intentional, making an impact and following SCFU guidelines. What do you feel short- and long-term success looks like for this initiative? The short term is really things that are happening immediately. Its the financial education, resources, grants, helping small businesses in L.A. who were impacted by the wildfires. Its a lot that we are doing and will be doing in the short term. Those are the short-term goals because theres things that are happening every second of the day. Long term is just more about how do we scale this. How do we go out there and bring in more support? How do we allow people who want to help and want to get involved do so? I think thats the long-term focus, and how do we grow it from a scalable standpoint? How has your own personal journey influenced the initiatives you take part in? For one, you keep that as a foundation. Thats the groundwork that Im building off of. My experiences, things that Ive been through, things that Ive seen people go through, and things that are constantly in the cycle of when you grow up in rough environments. You see and hear it all, and you understand it. It means a lot to me to still be able to tap back into those communities, the Black community, and talk to them and see whats happening on a day-to-day basis, as opposed to just having an opinion and trying to changed something from an uneducated view. That upbringing really allows me to go out there and focus on being intentional, authentic, and have one clear message. There is no confusion. My focus is on building communities that are authentic to me and authentic to my brand as well. As you moved along in your career, and now in the second phase, how did your approach to investing and wealth-building evolve? As you continue to talk with various people, as you continue to travel and develop a keen understanding of whats going on out thereI know what I know and I know what I dont know. I try and involve myself with things that I can be impactful with, that I can inspire or motivate withthat I can bring an expertise to the table and to the market where others can feel a part of the story and journey. The way I approach business is maybe a lot different than other peoples approaches. But Ive figured out what works for me. Youve talked to several thousands of people during your playing career. Was there one piece of financial advice you received that has stayed with you? Im sure youve heard it and the main one is always save your money. Thats the number one messagesave your money. Thats all you hear. When it was kind of early in my career, the fintech companies either werent around or they werent as prevalent. There wasnt a big industry when it came to sports and athletes and we werent getting that information and we didnt have those resources as athletes. You had to really go search and find those resources. Now, the resources are there. If you want it, you have to go get it and the information is provided to you. You just always heard save your money, save your money early in my career. Thats always going to be something in the back of your mind in everything that youre doing. Theres so much money and so many resources available to athletes now What role, if any, do you feel athletes can play in helping with financial education and access? For one, our responsibility as athletes would be to understand our power early. I think with having the resources earlier as young athletes, you can understand the power that you have to invest and comprehend business deals. I think learning that financial literacy is more than just income. Its securing generational wealth, understanding what youre trying to do, what works for you and your family. Its similar to a game. You have to find what works for you and what your flow is going to be. As a player, you have to find your flow. Youre a person that is now a resource of knowledge for these young athletes. What is your message to them about using their platform to advocate for issues to help the next generation? Its about helping them to understand their power as an athlete and that their voice is very powerful. Athletes coming together is very powerful. Most of us are already playing a team sport and we have to have that same approach when were off the court and off the field. We have to build teams and put the right people in the right roles. As far as what can happen and where that can take usI think we as athletes are some of the most powerful voices out there, believe it or not. Whether people want to agree or disagree with that, the truth is that we are. I think we have an opportunity to make a lot more change. Its just understanding the industry, the resources, our own power, and then understanding what it means for investing early in communities and people. Just making them, helping them to understand their power as an athlete. The power of athletes coming together. Most of us played, played a team sport, so we have to have that same approach off the field, off the court. We have to build teams. Your basketball legacy is now officially cemented forever. With this initiative and all youre continuing to do with your second chapter, how does that fit into the overall legacy you want to leave beyond basketball? Its full circle for me because you get a chance to go through it as an athlete actively and learn, and have these great experiences. Now, Im on the other side of that and I have the experiences from basketball. I feel like Ive put my work in and it has been solidified. I feel like that gate will be shut in September [the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame class of 2025including Anthony, Sue Bird, Sylvia Fowles, Dwight Howard, Maya Moorewill be inducted in September]. Now, its more about understanding the impact you did have on the court and allowing that impact to be felt off the court. In this case, its all my businesses, SCFU, and being boots on the groundfrom community, to product, to outreach and all of the above. Thats what the new focus is on.
Category:
E-Commerce
Elon Musk loves to project strength. He flexes loudlyhyping Tesla and xAI, bashing the federal government, even parenting like a drill sergeant. Lately, hes been trying to flex in gaming. On Joe Rogans podcast last year, Musk claimed he was one of the worlds best Diablo IV playersand the leaderboards seemed to back him up. That is, until he streamed Path of Exile 2. Viewers quickly noticed he had a high rank but played like a rookie. Musk later admitted to boosting his account. Still, hes kept streamingmostly becoming a punchline among serious gamers. Just last week, he rage-quit a stream after repeatedly dying and getting clowned by commenters. Musk wants badly to be seen as a pro gamer. The problem? Hes just not very good. Elon Musks gaming persona Scroll through Elon Musks X feed and youll find it all: offensive memes, government rants, attacks on business criticsand increasingly, gaming content. Musk has been streaming on X since 2023, sometimes from his personal account but more often from his alt, @cyb3rgam3r420. He streams from everywhereincluding a recent 44-minute session on his private jet, spent mostly in silence. Musk loves to hype himself. The clips he posts from his streams focus on big winsfaster clear times, new buildsor his new Path of Exile name, Kekius Maximus, which he claimed was destined for greatness. On The Joe Rogan Experience the day before the 2024 election, Musk went on a tangent to brag about his Diablo IV skills, claiming he ranked in the global top 20a list that, at the time, included only two Americans. Shockingly, Musk was right. So, why does he play like such an amateur? Musks streams often reveal a shaky grasp of Path of Exiles mechanics. Viewers have called out his gaming setup as another giveaway of his inexperience. Internet sleuths quickly analyzed his gameplay and noticed signs that his account had been active when he couldnt possibly have been playinglike during Trumps inauguration. Eventually, YouTuber NikoWrex DMed Musk directly, asking if he had boosted his account. Musk replied with the 100% emoji. Its impossible to beat the players in Asia if you dont, he wrote. Musk later reposted the exchange. Even after admitting to boosting, Musk keeps streaming. His skills remain mediocre, but he continues to hype these sessions as if he were an esports pro. His daughter, Vivian Wilson, recently described his gaming as dogst awful, like god-awful. Just last week, Musks Path of Exile 2 stream was overrun with hate comments and trolls after he repeatedly diedincluding to the tutorial boss. The stream eventually went dark (Musk blamed his WiFi) and was scrubbed from X. Elon Musk’s volatility complex Elon Musk has a long history of erratic online behavior. When he helped dismantle the Consumer Financial Protection Bureauwhich had saved consumers an estimated $19.7 billionhe mocked the move with a post: CFPB RIP. When Donald Trump spread the racist lie that Haitian immigrants were eating pets, Musk replied with AI-generated images of a kitten and duck, writing, save them! During Hurricane Helene, as the South faced devastation, Musk circulated misinformation from the FAA and FEMA via screenshots of text messages, then publicly clashed with Pete Buttigieg. The list goes on. Clearly, his behavior around gaming isnt exactly out of character. He wants to be seen as a pro, aligning himself with the bro demographic that helped elect Trump. Too bad hes just not good at it.
Category:
E-Commerce
A new ad from the Coca-Cola Co. opens with a shot of a typewriter clacking out Stephen King’s The Shining. The viewer follows a passage being written in an old-timey typeface until theres a reference to a bottle of Coke. Suddenly, the type appears as the cola company’s script logo. The ad is part of a new campaign called “Classic” running in Spain and the U.K., in which Coca-Cola highlights instances when its brand name appears in literature by rendering them in the books’ original first-edition typefaces. The passages are printed in black, and references to either “Coke” or “Coca-Cola” in passages from King’s The Shining, J. G. Ballard’s Extreme Metaphors, and V. S. Naipaul’s A House for Mr. Biswas are rendered in logo format. Coke’s red logo pops against the white paper amid the black retro type. [Photo: Courtesy of VML] The approach emphasizes Coke’s legacy and plays on nostalgia in an analog medium and in an analog way. While so much of soda marketing is contemporary and youth-oriented, Coke is doing the opposite. It found a clever way to remind viewers that it’s been part of culture long before e-readers and cellphones by going back to print. It’s anti-trend and purposefully old-school, using the brand’s history and resonance in culture as social proof of its legacy. The campaign will appear on outdoor billboards and signage, streaming radio, online video, print, and cinema. Out-of-home posters show passages printed on paper, complete with page numbers and the books author and title. [Photo: Courtesy of VML] The challenge for the creatives behind “Classic” was how to reinforce “the timelessness and authenticity of Coca-Cola in a world where trends reign,” says VML, the marketing agency that worked with Coke’s agency, WPP Open X, to create the campaign. “Coca-Cola has always been more than a beverageit’s a cultural icon that naturally finds its way into the stories we love,” Rafael Pitanguy, VML’s deputy global chief creative officer, said in a statement. “With ‘Classic,’ we’re honoring that legacy by bringing its literary presence to life in a way that feels both nostalgic and fresh.” Coca-Cola has played with its vintage-style script logo in new and surprising ways recently, like in a 2024 campaign from VML and WPP Open X that used authentic but unauthorized hand-drawn examples of the logo. And to promote recycling last year, Coca-Cola’s campaign with Ogilvy New York used smashed versions of the logo as they appear on crushed cans. With “Classic,” Coca-Cola isn’t so much finding experimental or clever ways to break from its brand guide like in some of last year’s creative. Instead, it’s finding a novel way to impose its brand guide onto culture, showing how Coke is embedded into literary history itself.
Category:
E-Commerce
Charging a car, or electric vehicle, typically takes about 350 kilowatts. Charging an entire ocean freighter, or electric vessel, could take 20 megawatts, roughly 57 times more power. Its a striking difference in power and generating capacity, and illuminates the challenges and opportunities behind greening the freighters and container ships crisscrossing the earths oceans. Across the Atlantic, maritime green energy provider NatPower Marine is developing the infrastructure to establish the worlds first operational electrified shipping corridor between Ireland and England. This includes electric boats and chargers and the renewable energy projectswhich include wind, solar, and batteriesto power the vessels. Stefano Sommadossi, the firms CEO, said these kinds of advancements will help close a considerable gap in a clean-energy-powered supply chain. A handful of electric ships will start traversing this route in 2026. 3% of global emissions This is important, Sommadossi said. Imagine getting your Tesla car delivered, and then realizing it was shipped to you over the ocean using diesel fuel. Im bringing you an energy-efficient vehicle with the worst kind of energy use. NatPower Marines $132 million investment with developer Peel Group will outfit eight portsincluding Lancashire and Dublinto create a network of electric vessels, as well as portside chargers, and electric cars and vans to transport goods once theyre unloaded. NatPower aims to create 120 clean ports by 2030, and plans to spend $4 billion in total to establish a global network. There has been concerted effort by advocates of cleaner global shipping to find more ways to cut the carbon emissions of this energy-hungry sector. Shipping is a vital link in the international economy, but it also contributes approximately 3% of global emissions, an amount roughly equivalent to the emissions of Germany. Unless they’re being made and used locally, or shipped via electric trucks, even the greenest items rack up considerable emissions on the journey overseas. The push to clean up ocean shipping has taken multiple pathways to success: electrifying very short routes, investing in cleaner fuels for cross-ocean trade, and electrifying port operations. The latter can make a big difference for those living near active ports, where port-related emissions can make up roughly a third of the citys carbon footprint. Cleaning up the industry offers substantial benefits, said Sommadossi, including cutting port emissions, improving the health of those living nearby, and, as green shipping networks grow and encompass a larger portion of everyday commerce, offering companies seeking to reduce their carbon footprint a chance at having a truly zero-emission supply chain. Crossing the oceans on clean power Electrification, as of yet, isnt quite feasible for journeys across the Atlantic or Pacific; too much battery weight, not enough places to stop and charge. Many proposals look at shorter routes with the ability to charge or swap batteries more often. But the power needed to do so would be immense: Sommadossi estimates that electrifying the entire shipping industry would use as much power every year as the U.S. currently consumes. For these journeys, new technology will need to be advanced and deployed, said Jesse Fahnestock, who leads decarbonization work at the Global Maritime Forum. The current vision involves creating sustainably produced liquid fuels, such as ammonia or methanol, and building out new infrastructure at ports, including fuel generation and storage. No current corridors exist, but there are a number of pilot and demonstration projects in the works, with the Global Maritime Forum helping to coordinate developments in order to establish international standards for power ships. The forum already counts 62 separate projects across the globe trying to determine greener shipping systems, with 15 electric corridors and the rest utilizing different variations of cleaner fuel. For many companies, the appeal of cutting out their ocean freight emissions is leverage thats currently being used to fund the development of alternative fuels for longer ocean trips. The Zero Emission Maritime Buyers Alliance (ZEMBA), a global collective, gathers companies, including Amazon and Patagonia, to create what it calls tendersrequests for providing significantly reduced emission transit for their goods. Shipping companies bid on the routes and the winner gets new business; its a way of guaranteeing big shippers get compensated for their investments in cleaner fuels and ships. Biofuels on the high seas The shipping industry is a complex and often overlooked, hard-to-abate sector that is only now starting to deploy zero and near-zero emission solutions, said Ingrid Irigoyen, CEO of ZEMBA, which aims to accelerate the shift away from fossil fuels in the shipping industry. This industry also faces the famous chicken and egg problem, referring to the idea that many cargo ownersthe customers of the shipping industryare hesitant to invest in newer, more expensive, more sustainable service offerings until low emission fuels and technologies reach scale and therefore significant cost reduction. ZEMBA remains fuel-agnostic, just as long as the fuel and technology (be it green methanol, ammonia, or methane) can attain a 90% greenhouse gas reduction rate. Later this year, ZEMBAs first tender will begin operating: Shipping line Hapag-Lloyd will service 20 freight buyers, including Meta, New Balance, Nike, and REI Co-op, shipping goods between Singapore and the port city of Rotterdam in the Netherlands on ships powered with waste-based biomethane, with an 80% reduction in carbon emissions. Irigoyen said there were challenges finding enough alternative fuel and figuring out the correct carbon accounting, but the launch is on track, and expects to abate 82,000 metric tons of CO2 over the next two years. ZEMBA is set to launch a second tender in 2027 that would focus more on hydrogen-based fuels. Irigoyens vision is a shipping sector where any company has the ability to decarbonize all its shipping activities if it so chooses, all at a competitive rate. The companies in the alliance represent the first movers, and their investment will hopefully kick-start a market for scalable sustainability solutions, she said, adding, I find that kind of leadership and long-term thinking quite moving and inspiring.
Category:
E-Commerce
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