Startup Founder Achieves Milestone with Innovative AI Model

Anna Veronika Dorogush is a former machine learning engineer turned advocate for the ethical development and use of AI. She’s been making waves by recently founding Recraft, a startup that recently crossed $5 million in annual recurring revenue (ARR). Dorogush, who is based in San Francisco, has created a cutting-edge AI model, nicknamed “red_panda.” This model has surpassed incumbents such as DALL-E and Midjourney on the Artificial Analysis benchmark.

Dorogush’s incredible journey started at Yandex, Russia’s version of Google, where she developed her skills working with machine learning. She then shared her knowledge at Google and Microsoft before making the entrepreneurial jump to build Recraft. Having such a unique perspective, blending her technical knowledge and investigative journalism experience, gave her special insights into artificial intelligence. These findings were central to pushing for U.S. government sanctions against four leading high-tech individuals and companies, including what’s become China’s largest AI enterprise.

Recraft has been an overnight success, and it only took 11 days to get over 4 million users. In 2024, Khosla Ventures participated in the startup’s recent $12 million Series A funding round. This investment further solidifies the company’s potential AI leadership in an already competitive market. Dorogush attributes much of Recraft’s success to identifying areas where today’s image models fall short. This one perspective helped lead her own team to develop solutions they really need and use the most.

“The biggest lesson from that time was that grinding isn’t everything,” Dorogush reflected on her experiences during her career in tech. This philosophy appears to have underpinned her direction at Recraft, where iteration and design with the end-user in mind come first.

Dorogush is preparing to compete at TechCrunch’s Startup Battlefield in Berkeley, California, on June 5. She will share her lessons learned and provide a glimpse into the rapidly changing AI landscape.

For anyone who wishes to connect with Dorogush, she can be reached through Signal at charlesrollet.12 or +1-628-282-2811.