Modelia closes $1.2M first round to bring AI visual generation to fashion
What's the deal? ModeliaDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, a Spanish platform that uses artificial intelligence to generate and manage visual assets for fashion brands, has closed its first funding round at $1.2M (€1.03M). The company was founded in 2024 by Iván Rodríguez and René Haas and plans to use the capital to accelerate its commercial rollout.
The round was led by Next Tier, a Spanish fund specialising in AI startups. US-based Rapid Escale and Spain's Archipelago NextDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → — both existing shareholders — also participated, alongside a group of fashion-industry angel investors including Blue Banana co-founder Nacho RiveraDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →.
The founders retain majority ownership. Before the round, they held 70% of the company, with the remaining 30% belonging to fashion-sector angels who backed it at inception.
Why now? Fashion brands are under growing pressure to produce high volumes of visual content — product shots, campaign imagery, lookbooks — faster and cheaper. AI-powered image generation has matured rapidly over the past two years, making tools like Modelia's commercially viable at a moment when the industry is actively looking for ways to cut production costs.
Rodríguez brings serial-founder credibility. He previously founded ParclickDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, a parking marketplace, and Vivla, a fractional-ownership property startup — giving him experience scaling tech platforms across different verticals.
What could go wrong? AI-generated visuals remain a sensitive topic in fashion, where brand identity and creative authenticity carry enormous weight. Convincing luxury and premium labels to trust machine-made imagery is a harder sell than reaching fast-fashion players optimising for speed and volume.
Competition is also intensifying. Larger AI platforms and well-funded startups across Europe and the US are building similar tools for e-commerce and fashion content, which could squeeze a small player like Modelia before it scales.
The signal: Modelia sits at the intersection of two investor convictions gaining momentum in Spain: vertical AI applications and fashion-tech infrastructure. Lead investor Next Tier VenturesDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →' focus on AI-native startups, combined with backing from fashion-industry angels like Blue Banana's Nacho Rivera, suggests the round was shaped by both technical credibility and genuine commercial pull from potential customers. For a company still in early growth, retaining founder-majority ownership after two rounds also gives Modelia unusual strategic flexibility as it scales.
Read more: modaes.com
