Check out the 12-slide pitch deck LottieLab, a startup banking on the death of GIFs, used to raise $4 million in fresh funds.


LottieLab cofounders Andrew Ologunebi and Alistair Thomson

  • LottieLab is building software for the lottie file type, which it said will replace GIFs in animation.
  • Founded in 2021, the startup hopes to make it easier for everyone to create lottie animations.
  • Check out the 12-slide pitch deck the startup used to raise $4 million.

A startup banking on the death of GIFs has just raised $4 million for its animation software.

London-based LottieLab is building software to create, collaborate on, and manage lottie file types, which it claims will be the next-generation of GIF. 

GIFs may be a popular way to react to friends over text, but they are not fit purpose in the design world, LottieLab cofounder Andrew Ologunebi told Insider. 

The file type requires a lot of space on apps, meaning greater loading times, and can’t be exported as code, Ologunebi said. They must be embedded rather than hard-coded into software, meaning they are not easily manipulated to respond to user data.

“When you have a GIF or video that’s already rendered out, you can’t change the way it works,” Ologunebi said. “That’s exactly the way it’s always going to look. With coded animations, you can actually make it respond to user interactions.” 

Language learning platform Duolingo uses lotties extensively, for example its mascot’s background changes depending on the location of the user. 

“If a user is visiting from Paris, you have the Eiffel Tower in the background,” Ologunebi said. “If it’s from New York, it’d be the Brooklyn Bridge. San Francisco will be the Golden Gate Bridge.” These animations “respond live” to user data, which is why different animations show up, Ologunebi added.

Lottie files are already used by Instacart, Disney and Headspace but they are not built on specialist software, Ologunebi said. Most Lottie animations are created on Adobe After Effects, he added, and this requires “a series of plugins and open source tools” and becomes complicated.

LottieLab, founded in 2021, is a browser-based animation platform for designers, developers, and non-technical marketers to create, manage, and deploy Lottie animations. 

The platform lets users both export files as code, which increases performance and interactivity, the company said, or embedded live links into software. When doing the latter, the animation can be changed centrally and automatically updated across all websites and apps.

Ologunebi built LottieLab with cofounder Alistair Thomson to be as easy to use as possible. The software “goes back to frame by frame animations,” allowing users to create a timeline of key frames, with the software automatically animating the transition. To create motion paths, where animations move around the screen, the user can also just click and drag.

LottieLab is currently in private beta mode but expects to be in public beta by the end of the year. It plans to operate a SaaS model, with different tiers depending on the number of users and output. 

The fresh round, led by European early-stage investor Point Nine, will be used to triple headcount in the next year and build out the product. Podcaster Harry Stebbings’s 20VC and Entrepreneur First also participated in the round.

Check out the 12-slide pitch deck LottieLab used to raise the cash.



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LottieLab pitch deck



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LottieLab


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