ChatGPT
Perplexity
Claude
Gemini
The Lore
By the time Coco Mao and John Qiao left Google in 2022 to build OpenArt, they had already done this once before. Inside Google's Area 120 incubator they had launched a short-form video platform, grown it to millions of monthly active users with a team of five, and watched it get acquired by Google Search. They knew what a lean team could do.
So when they noticed people were generating AI images everywhere but had no idea what prompts to write, they built a simple browsing site pairing AI images with their prompts, a place where anyone could see exactly how something was made and make it themselves. They posted it to Hacker News under the headline "Pinterest for AI images" and woke up to find it was the number one story of the day.
From there they started building creation tools, going deeper on image generation and editing. But the signal that changed everything came from their users. The most requested feature, by far, was consistent characters. When Coco asked why, the answer was always the same: they were trying to tell a story. That insight is what turned OpenArt from an image tool into a full creative platform — image, video, character, audio, all in one place — built for the people who have a story to tell, not just an image to generate.
El impulso
A team of ten people building something they believed in looked up one day and realized what they'd created was undeniable. In 2025, OpenArt grew revenue 7x, from $10.5M ARR to over $70M. We crossed 8 million monthly active users and closed a $35M Series A led by Canaan Partners.
But the metric we actually watch most closely isn't ARR, it's how obsessively our creators keep coming back. Not to generate one-off images, but to deepen the characters they've built, expand the universes they're creating, and advance stories that matter to them. That retention is the real signal.
Behind those numbers is a team headquartered in San Francisco, building for millions of OpenArt creators in every country on every continent. We move fast, over-communicate, and put storytelling at the heart of everything we build. We've nearly doubled in size this year, and the pace isn't slowing down. In Q1 alone, we've already:
- Lanzamos una renovación integral de la interfaz, los flujos de trabajo más limpios que hemos lanzado nunca
- Organizó la primera Cumbre de Influencers de IA del mundo in San Francisco
- Produced Bot House, the first ever AI reality TV show
We're actively growing the team to match. If that sounds like the kind of place you want to build, we'd love to hear from you.
En qué creemos
El pincel fue radical cuando llegó. También lo fue la cámara. Y el cine. Y el CGI. Cada generación ha tenido un momento en el que apareció una herramienta nueva y cierto tipo de persona, normalmente tachada de ingenua o peligrosa o ambas cosas, la tomó e hizo algo que el mundo nunca había visto. Los artistas y narradores que abrazaron esas herramientas no sustituyeron la creatividad, simplemente se convirtieron en su siguiente capítulo.
Generative AI is that moment. When we say we're democratizing creativity at OpenArt, what we mean is putting the paintbrush in the hands of someone who has never held one. We believe AI helps humans tell better stories. For seasoned filmmakers, or just someone with a story to share.
Entre los creadores con los que Coco habló el año pasado había una abuela recién jubilada de Nueva Zelanda que había creado un canal de YouTube dedicado por completo a historias de gatos con IA. Cada semana escribe un prompt, OpenArt construye el mundo a su alrededor, y su pequeño pero fiel público vuelve a por más. No es cineasta ni diseñadora, solo alguien que por fin tenía las herramientas para dar vida a su imaginación.
What's Next
The next great creative franchise could come from anywhere. A filmmaker with a vision too expensive to shoot. A brand builder who can't wait for a production cycle. A first-time creator who, for the first time, actually can.
Es hacia eso que trabajamos. Una plataforma donde tus personajes, tu estética y tu identidad creativa te pertenecen por completo. Donde la propiedad intelectual que creas con IA es tuya para protegerla, hacerla crecer y poseerla. Donde las herramientas son lo bastante potentes para profesionales y lo bastante accesibles para todos los demás.