The idea behind Lightricks, a Jerusalem unicorn that specializes in image and video editing apps, was simple. It’s about enabling people to realize their creative visions, even if they lack the skills.
“I’m not an artist. I don’t know how to paint or sing or anything, but I have something in my head that I want to show others,” Lightrix co-founder and CEO Jeeb Ferbman told ISRAEL21c.
“Thanks to us, people can be creative even if they have no technical ability. Initially, we were just making apps that tackle specific areas, like FaceTune, which is mobile Photoshop,” he says.
“We are now at a point where we are beginning to feel that the vision we had is becoming possible with the advent of artificial intelligence. Machines can help you show other people what you are imagining right away.
The company was recently ranked 5th by valuation in CB Insights’ list of 13 global generative AI unicorns.
Lightricks was founded in 2013 by a group of military friends who had a PhD in Computer Science from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
They have developed a number of very popular mobile apps for image and video editing, pre-image viewing, image animation, and storytelling.
The Lightricks app has been downloaded nearly 700 million times and has over 30 million monthly users.
big mess
“When we started out, our audience was people who simply wanted to create great looking social media content,” Ferbman explains. “They needed a more agile tool. But as our users became experts, we were able to offer a deeper product with more content.”
When mobile came into the world, it was a big revolution that disrupted many sectors, Ferbman recalls.
But now mobile “has reached a plateau of sorts in terms of what each generation of devices can offer,” he says.
“In the space of ten years, we have gone from being a very small place on the App Store to being a huge industry.
“This big shift is AI, which is disrupting everything from binary to hardware to consumer products.
change the rules
Lightrix saw two options for this new game-changing technology.
“One option is to go straight through the game and try to understand the benefits of this new game, or the other is to walk away. We decided to stay in the game,” says Ferbman.
“We have decided to build AI tools into our products, and we also do a lot of internal work across the company to use AI to increase productivity. It is very difficult to create change within an organization of 10,000 people, but with 600 people it is much easier.”
Most of Lightrix’s employees are in Jerusalem, but there are many more in Beersheba, Haifa, Chicago and London.
With its headquarters in Jerusalem on the leafy Givatram campus of the Hebrew University, this close connection with academia continues to influence the company’s character.
“We recruit a lot of people from universities and the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design. [former PhD] The director is just around the corner and we are in close contact with the students,” he added.
changing business model
When asked about the challenges he faced along the way, the now-bald Ferbman joked that ten years ago he had long, dark hair all over his head.
In fact, the biggest challenge was having to re-evaluate the business model over and over again.
Over a decade, Lightricks moved from a standard paid app model to a then-innovative freemium subscription model. It currently occupies a niche market in AI and the creator economy.
“The nature of technology is that you are not confined to one type of platform, and suddenly you can compete in all areas. About 70 Lightrix employees in Israel were laid off last summer.
But looking to the future, Ferbman envisions untapped possibilities for AI.
“We are now experiencing technology that bridges the gap between natural language and computer language,” he explains.
“We are already used to computers doing things for us, like calendar apps. If we have a specific task, we search for products that can help us with it.
The concept of automating tasks is now envisioned, but “the boundaries aren’t really understood yet because we’re still short on wires. All these systems don’t yet know how to connect to each other,” explains Furbman.
“But I think it’s better to be optimistic than pessimistic about all this, otherwise you’ll have a hard time sleeping at night.”
