Israeli AI Startup Bria Lays Off One-Third of Staff

Bria, an Israeli artificial intelligence startup that develops a platform for creating marketing images and videos using AI, has laid off 20 of its 60 employees, amounting to one-third of its workforce. The company stated that the layoffs are intended to sharpen its focus on a new platform designed for marketing professionals. The majority of the research employees who were let go worked outside of Israel, and the global model development team has been reduced to a local team. Research Manager Ron Mokadi has left the company, while CTO Misha Feinstein remains to lead development and research. Bria, founded in 2020, has raised $65 million to date, with its most recent funding round of $40 million occurring in early 2025. Investors include Red Dot Capital, Entree Capital, Intel Capital, and Publicis, as well as Getty Images, with whom Bria announced a partnership in 2022. The company operates in the Generative AI sector, creating new content like images and videos based on user prompts, with a focus on enterprise clients in advertising, gaming, media, and retail, emphasizing regulation, ethics, and copyright. It competes with companies like Adobe and Canva, as well as giants like Google and OpenAI in the AI content creation space. Bria asserts that its financial outlook allows it to continue operations, and its AI model will continue to evolve, focusing on the needs of marketers and integrating into its new core product: visual AI agents that perform design tasks for users.