Lightricks

Last updated
Lightricks
Company typePrivate
IndustrySoftware Development
Founded2013
HeadquartersJerusalem, Israel
Key people
 Zeev Farbman (CEO/Co Founder)

Nir Pochter (CMO/Co Founder)

Yaron Inger (CTO/Co Founder)

Amit Goldstein (COO/Co Founder)
OwnerLightricks Ltd
Number of employees
600
Website lightricks.com

Lightricks, founded in January 2013, is a company that develops video and image editing mobile apps and generative AI software, known particularly for its selfie-editing app, Facetune. [1] [2] [3]

Contents

Headquartered in Jerusalem, the firm has approximately 600 employees. [4] [5] As of 2021, Lightricks is valued at $1.8 billion. [6]


In 2024, the company released an open-source artificial intelligence models for generative media. [7] As of 2025 Lightricks has over 6.6 million monthly paying users, over 50 million monthly users, and its apps have been downloaded over 730 million times. [8]

History

AI-generated video of the Tesla Cybertruck based on two photos by OWS Photography. Generated using Lightricks' LTXV 2B model.

The company was created in 2013 by 5 founders, Ph.D. students Zeev Farbman, Nir Pochter, Yaron Inger, Amit Goldstein, and former Supreme Court of Israel clerk Itai Tsiddon who were all studying at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. [2] [9]

After beginning in the Hebrew University of Jerusalem campus, the company outgrew its space a number of times. It remains based in Jerusalem, Israel, with offices in Haifa, London, New York and Chicago; it has a total of approximately 600 employees. [10] [4] [11]

Funding and Finances

Lightricks began life as a bootstrapped company, which was the subject of a case study from the Harvard Business School "Bootstrapping at Lightricks". [12]

In 2015 the company went through its first (series A) funding round, of $10 million, led by Viola Ventures. [13] [14]

In November 2018 Insight Venture Partners led its second (series B) funding round of $60 million, with participation from Israeli VC company ClalTech. [9]

In July 2019, it secured $135 million in series C funding led by Goldman Sachs, with participation from Insight Partners and ClalTech; this was reported to imply a $1 billion valuation. [15] [16] [17]

In September 2021 Lightricks announced a series D funding round, with a valuation of $1.8 billion. The round was co-led by New York-based global private equity and venture capital firm Insight Partners and Hanaco Venture Capital, with participation from existing investors Goldman Sachs, ClalTech, Harel Insurance and Finance and Greycroft, with new investors Migdal Insurance, Altshuler Shaham, and Shavit Capital. The series D round brought Lightricks' total funding to $335 million. [18] [19] [20]

Business

Lightricks ended 2018 with over $50 million in revenue, [2] by July 2025 it had reached $250 million in Annual Recurring Revenues (ARR). [21]

Mobile Apps

Once Apple Inc allowed it, Lightricks was one of the first app companies to offer subscriptions. Most of its apps are now published under a freemium model. [35] [36] [37]

Creator Economy

In 2022, as part of its play in the creator economy space, Lightricks acquired Popular Pays, a U.S. based startup, that built and manages an influencer and creator marketing platform of the same name. [38] The goal was to help influencers creating content within Lightricks' mobile apps monetize their work in a more streamlined fashion. [39] [40]

Generative AI

In the summer of 2022, with the emergence of generative artificial intelligence, Lightricks began incorporating GenAI flows in its apps, including Facetune and Photoleap, becoming one of the first to offer text-to-image capabilities on mobile devices. [41]

In February 2024, Lightricks introduced LTX Studio, a platform for creating and editing videos using AI. [42] In August 2024 it ended its beta phase and was opened to the public. [43] In October 2025 Lightricks revealed that a number of creative agencies, including McCann Paris, where using LTX Studio as part of their workflow. [44]

In November 2024, the company released its own AI image to video generation model, LTX Video, a 2 billion parameter model released as open source. [45] [46] In May 2025 Lightricks released a 13 billion parameter model, capable of generating 5 seconds of video in 4 seconds, [47] and in July 2025 it announced it had broken the 60 second barrier for GenAI videos. [48]

In October 2025 Lightricks released LTX-2, capable of creating 4K-quality video with fully synchronized sound. [49] [50]

References

  1. ↑ "Lightricks proves the Start Up Nation is not just about Tel-Aviv". The Jerusalem Post. 18 March 2019. Retrieved 16 July 2019.
  2. 1 2 3 "Calcalist's Top 50 Startups 2019: #11-#17". Calcalist. 8 May 2019. Retrieved 16 July 2019.
  3. ↑ "Mobile photo connect : 10 questions to a founder : Lightricks". Kaptur. 11 October 2017. Retrieved 16 July 2019.
  4. 1 2 "Facetune Developer Lightricks to Open R&D Center in Haifa". Calacalist. 8 December 2019. Retrieved 4 March 2021.
  5. ↑ "Yet Another Israeli Unicorn: Lightricks Raises Funds at $1b Valuation". Haaretz. Retrieved 4 September 2019.
  6. ↑ Hazani, Golan (2021-09-19). "Lightricks announces $130 million Series D at $1.8 billion valuation". CTECH - www.calcalistech.com. Retrieved 2021-12-19.
  7. ↑ Nuñez, Michael (2024-11-22). "Lightricks bets on open-source AI video to challenge Big Tech". VentureBeat. Retrieved 2025-08-18.
  8. ↑ "PressKit". www.lightricks.com. Retrieved 2023-08-30.
  9. 1 2 "Enlight and Facetune creator Lightricks raises $60 million". Venture Beat. 19 November 2018. Retrieved 16 July 2019.
  10. ↑ "C-tech: Jerusalem-based Lightricks opens London office". UK Israel Business. Archived from the original on 11 January 2021. Retrieved 16 July 2019.
  11. ↑ "To keep creativity alive, Lightricks initiated its 'Creativity Festival'". Calacalist. 18 February 2021. Retrieved 4 March 2021.
  12. ↑ "Bootstrapping at Lightricks". Harvard Business School. Retrieved 16 July 2019.
  13. ↑ "Israeli image editing app co Lightricks raises $60m". Globes. 19 November 2018. Retrieved 16 July 2019.
  14. ↑ "Lightricks, The Creator Of Facetune, Lands $10M To Develop New Photo-Editing Apps". TechCrunch. 12 August 2015. Retrieved 16 July 2019.
  15. ↑ "App developer Lightricks raises $135 million at a $1 billion valuation". Venture Beat. 31 July 2019. Retrieved 31 July 2019.
  16. ↑ "Yet Another Israeli Unicorn: Lightricks Raises Funds at $1b Valuation". Haaretz. Retrieved 1 August 2019.
  17. ↑ "The maker of popular selfie app Facetune just landed $135 million at a unicorn valuation". TechCrunch. 31 July 2019. Retrieved 1 August 2019.
  18. ↑ Hazani, Golan (2021-09-19). "Lightricks announces $130 million Series D at $1.8 billion valuation". CTECH - www.calcalistech.com. Retrieved 2025-11-02.
  19. ↑ Brummer, David (2021-09-19). "Israeli App Developer Lightricks Secures $130M At $1.8B Valuation". NoCamels. Retrieved 2025-11-02.
  20. ↑ "Facetune maker Lightricks raises $130 million ahead of M&A plans". Techcrunch. 20 September 2021. Retrieved 31 October 2021.
  21. ↑ "The $250+ million ARR club: Israel's most lucrative tech startups". ctech. 2025-07-28. Retrieved 2025-11-02.
  22. ↑ "Expo Notes: Spruce up your selfies with Facetune" . Retrieved 2025-11-02.
  23. ↑ "Apple's most downloaded apps of 2017". Mashable. 7 December 2017. Retrieved 16 July 2019.
  24. ↑ "Google Unveils 'Best Apps of 2014' Section on Play Store". Gadgets 360. Archived from the original on 2025-02-15. Retrieved 2025-11-02.
  25. ↑ "Facetune AI Tools Review 2025: Pros, Cons, and Pricing". Sonary. Retrieved 2025-11-02.
  26. ↑ "Facetune maker's newest app, Enlight Photofox, is a powerful image editor". TechCrunch. 6 July 2017. Retrieved 16 July 2019.
  27. ↑ "Testing photo editing apps: "Photofox: Digital Art"". DW. Retrieved 19 April 2021.
  28. ↑ Forristal, Lauren (2022-08-26). "Lightricks launches text-to-image generator". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2023-09-04.
  29. ↑ "Enlight Videoleap". Sensor Tower. Retrieved 16 July 2019.
  30. ↑ Ravet, Hagar (2017-12-08). "Enlight Videoleap Wins Apple's iPhone App of the Year Award". CTECH - www.calcalistech.com. Retrieved 2025-11-02.
  31. ↑ "8 must-have e-commerce tools for boosting revenues in 2021". Tech Republic. Retrieved 19 April 2021.
  32. ↑ "Facetune maker Lightricks brings its popular selfie retouching features to video". TechCrunch. 28 July 2020. Retrieved 19 April 2021.
  33. ↑ "Latest Version of Facetune Offers Tools for AI-Powered Video Editing and Custom-Image Synthesis - Grit Daily News". 2022-11-03. Retrieved 2025-11-02.
  34. ↑ "Facetune maker's new app Filtertune let anyone create and share personalized photo filters". TechCrunch. 27 October 2020. Retrieved 19 April 2021.
  35. ↑ "Apple reportedly asked devs to adopt subscriptions and hike app prices". Venture Beat. 13 August 2018. Retrieved 16 July 2019.
  36. ↑ "Leading developer Lightricks launches Facetune 2.0 to leverage Apple's app subscription model". Venture Beat. 25 November 2016. Retrieved 16 July 2019.
  37. ↑ "Facetune is looking to prove that the subscription iPhone app model can work". Vox. 25 November 2016. Retrieved 16 July 2019.
  38. ↑ Lightricks. "Lightricks Acquires Popular Pays, Empowering Creator Community to Monetize Content". www.prnewswire.com. Retrieved 2025-11-02.
  39. ↑ "The maker of Facetune is buying Popular Pays to help influencers get paid". Chicago Business Journal. 2022-03-25. Retrieved 2025-11-02.
  40. ↑ Flynn, Kerry (2022-03-23). "Facetune app owner makes first acquisition". Axios. Retrieved 2025-08-18.
  41. ↑ Whitt, Phillip (2024), "The AI Image Generator", Beginning Pixlr, Berkeley, CA: Apress, ISBN   979-8-8688-0458-8 , retrieved 2025-11-02
  42. ↑ Mehta, Ivan (2024-02-28). "Lightricks announces AI-powered filmmaking studio to help creators visualize stories". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2024-02-29.
  43. ↑ "Lightricks' LTX Studio, the AI Visual Storytelling Platform, Now Open to All - Silicon Canals". 2024-08-20. Retrieved 2025-11-02.
  44. ↑ "Can you tell when AI made the ad?". Globes. 2025-10-27. Retrieved 2025-11-02.
  45. ↑ Nuñez, Michael (2024-11-22). "Lightricks bets on open-source AI video to challenge Big Tech". VentureBeat. Retrieved 2025-06-29.
  46. ↑ Xavier, John (2024-11-26). "Facetune maker Lightricks unveils open-source AI video tool, LTX Video 0.9, setting new standards for speed and quality". The Hindu. ISSN   0971-751X . Retrieved 2025-11-02.
  47. ↑ Lightricks. "Lightricks Launches 13B Parameters LTX Video Model, Breakthrough Rendering Approach Generates High-quality, Efficient AI Video 30X Faster Than Comparable Models". www.prnewswire.com. Retrieved 2025-11-02.
  48. ↑ Fink, Charlie. "LTX Video Breaks The 60-Second Barrier, Redefining AI Video As A Longform Medium". Forbes. Retrieved 2025-11-02.
  49. ↑ Shahaf, Tal (2025-10-23). "Lightricks unveils powerful AI video model challenging OpenAI and Google". Ynetglobal. Retrieved 2025-11-02.
  50. ↑ Team, TechRound (2025-10-27). "With LTX-2, Lightricks Unleashes AI Video Creation In Full HD". TechRound. Retrieved 2025-11-02.
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