Gamma acquires Accel-backed Lica to build an AI design research lab
What's the deal? Presentation startup GammaDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → has acquired Accel-backed design startup LicaDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → to build its own design research lab, TechCrunch has learned. Lica's co-founders, Priyaa Kalyanaraman and Purvanshi Mehta, will lead the effort.
Who is Lica? Founded in 2023, the startup began as an app that turned screenshots and recordings into presentations and videos. A year later it raised $4 million from investors including Accel, South Park Commons, and Village Global, then focused on making brand-compliant marketing videos for e-commerce sites.
Why now? Kalyanaraman said Lica wanted to build AI models around communication methods like video and design, while Gamma had scaled distribution to more than 100 million users. The founders knew Gamma chief executive officer Lee Grant, as both companies share backers in Accel and South Park Commons.
"We have a very similar North Star vision of wanting to make visual communication easy," Kalyanaraman said. "Given how fast things are moving, we decided to join forces."
What's the endgame? Gamma will keep its focus on presentations but now wants to explore new communication formats through the research division. It has already added image generation.
"Presentations for us are today a core use case, but how do we expand what presentations look and feel like," Grant said. "This is why we're excited to invest in this area, because we don't think anybody else is thinking at that level."
Mehta said the division would customise the presentation and communication styles of AI models for different audiences. "We are thinking about building a platform where these two goals can be personalized to such an extent that you just get a really good output," she said.
The signal: AI presentation startups have drawn heavy investor money, and consolidation is picking up. Prezent raised $50 million; Gamma raised $68 million at a $2.1 billion valuation; and earlier this month OpenAI acquired NextSlideDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →.
Read more: TechCrunch
Image credit: Generated with Gemini
