Demoverse Raises $600,000 Pre-Seed Round Led by Lumikai
With the new funding, Demoverse plans to move beyond closed trials, expand its consumer community and develop paid campaigns with brands while building its presence in the US market.
Bengaluru-based AI product co-creation startup Demoverse has raised $600,000 in pre-seed funding in a round led by interactive media and gaming venture capital firm Lumikai.
Lumikai invested $500,000 through its Pixels programme, while the remaining capital came from UAE-based investor-operator Marlan Space and angel investors, according to reports on the funding announcement. Lumikai’s Pixels programme provides pre-seed funding of up to $500,000 to early-stage founders working across interactive media, digital platforms and games.
The fresh capital will be used to expand Demoverse’s design and consumer community, develop its product and support its entry into the US market. The startup is targeting a shift in how consumer brands develop physical products by involving customers during the design process rather than collecting feedback only after a product has been developed.
Founded in 2026 by Akshay Mehta, Demoverse allows brands to upload product concepts and invite consumers to modify, evolve and vote on different versions using generative AI. The company describes its platform as a co-creation layer between brands and consumers, with the aim of generating consumer preference signals before products move into manufacturing.
Mehta previously worked at Marlan Space and was involved in building Orbitworks, a satellite manufacturing joint venture between Marlan Space and Loft Orbital. He announced his departure from Marlan Space earlier this year to build Demoverse.
Fashion is currently Demoverse’s primary focus, although the company says the platform can extend to categories including beauty, furniture and other consumer products. Its current enterprise product allows brands to run campaigns around unreleased concepts, while consumers can use AI to suggest changes and create alternative versions. The community can then rank the resulting designs.
The company has also been testing the model through closed pilots. In a recent pilot with the National Institute of Fashion Technology, participants redesigned a base garment and competed to create versions that best matched the preferences of the wider group. Mehta said the pilot involved around 30 participants and used algorithmic scoring and community voting to determine the results.
Alongside its B2B offering, Demoverse has launched a consumer app on Apple’s App Store. The app allows users to create and modify product designs, participate in daily design drops, vote on concepts and track their position within the community. It also includes a royalty mechanism under which contributors may earn if their designs are selected and manufactured.
The startup is a member of NVIDIA’s Inception programme and says it is supported by Google for Startups. Its platform relies on image and video generation to allow users to modify product concepts interactively.