Napkin, a pioneering company utilizing Visual AI to enhance business storytelling, has officially come out of stealth mode with $10 million in seed funding from Accel and CRV. The funding is intended to advance Napkin’s mission of transforming text into impactful visuals, making business communication more engaging and efficient.
With dwindling attention spans and information overload becoming more prevalent, effectively conveying complex ideas is increasingly difficult. Napkin tackles this challenge by empowering users to visually articulate their ideas with minimal effort, ensuring their messages resonate and captivate audiences.
The Power of Visual AI
Napkin’s innovative platform allows users to seamlessly convert text content into visuals. By integrating with popular tools like Google Docs, Slides, Canva, Slack, Word, PowerPoint, Email, and Text, Napkin enhances existing workflows without requiring users to switch platforms. This functionality is currently in beta, providing users with a preview of its potential.
Users can personalize visuals to align with their brand guidelines by adjusting styles, colors, fonts, shapes, and designs. Napkin commits to introducing new styles and designs continuously to cater to diverse storytelling needs, ensuring users can always find the perfect visual representation for their ideas.
A Vision for Effortless Design
“With the iPhone, Apple made it dead simple for anyone to take photos. We aim to do the same thing with graphics,” says Pramod Sharma, co-founder of Napkin. “Visuals are powerful, and we’ve designed Napkin so anyone can easily communicate their ideas through imagery.”
Napkin’s process is simple:
- Bring Your Text: Users can paste their existing text content or generate text from an AI prompt.
- Generate Visuals: By clicking the “spark icon” on any part of the text, Napkin transforms content into recommended visuals within seconds.
- Customize: Users can adjust font, color, shape, design, and more with Napkin’s built-in editing tools.
- Embed into Workflows: Users can easily integrate Napkin’s visuals into any platform, such as Google Slides, Docs, Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, Substack, Medium, Slack, Notion, Canva, LinkedIn, X, Instagram, and more.
Use Cases and Testimonials
Napkin caters to a variety of use cases, including presentations, social media posts, pitch decks, newsletters, data and research reports, and customer communications. Jason Miller, COO of SproutsAI, shares the following benefits. “Napkin generates exactly what I’m looking for within seconds. Now, with Napkin, we have a designer at our fingertips, offering unlimited access to enhance our business storytelling with visuals while achieving significant cost and time savings.”
Napkin’s design catalog features over 30 visual design categories, such as mind maps, flow charts, Venn diagrams, and bar charts. The company’s team of NLP, AI, and computer vision developers, including experts from Amazon, Microsoft’s Research Lab, GitHub, Google, and Osmo, are continuously working on more powerful customizations and unique categories.
Founders’ Vision and Background
Jerome Scholler and Pramod Sharma founded Napkin after their successful venture with Osmo, an AI gaming company aimed at making learning fun for kids. Osmo’s Reflective AI, integrated into products with Disney and Mattel’s Hot Wheels, is used by millions of children and classrooms.
“Jerome and Pramod have an uncanny ability to take something incredibly challenging from a technical perspective and make it easy for users,” said Rich Wong, Partner at Accel. Max Gazor, General Partner at CRV, added, “Napkin’s AI-first approach is a breakthrough in visual communication that we are excited to share with the world.”
Conclusion
Napkin is poised to revolutionize business communication by making visual storytelling accessible to everyone. Whether for presentations, social media, or internal communications, Napkin’s tools enable users to create compelling visuals quickly and effortlessly. To explore Napkin’s capabilities or try it yourself, visit Napkin.ai.
