# motchi.art

Aiolum story: https://aiolum.com/story/motchi-art/ · added 2026-11-06 · updated 2026-11-06

**In short.** motchi.art (AI mascot and character animation generator, Croatia): US$1.3K in Stripe-verified revenue since launch, November 2026. Evidence grade A: disclosed by a company or a filing, or verified by a payment processor. Team: 1 founder, Vedran Balagović, under his company Neural Draft LTD; no source names anyone else. Launched February 2026; still running, revenue falling.

AI mascot and character animation generator · Croatia · AI-native · solo founder · still running, revenue falling · group: Photos and portraits

- Outcome: US$1.3K in Stripe-verified revenue since launch, November 2026 (evidence grade of the headline number: A; headline in US dollars: 1262)
- Launch: February 2026; months from launch to the outcome: 9
- Team: 1 founder, Vedran Balagović, under his company Neural Draft LTD; no source names anyone else
- Outside funding: None reported
- Main factor: Model chaining
- Meters, 1 to 4: evidence strength 3, copyable pattern 3, capital needed 1
- Tags: AI-native, Solo founder, Bootstrapped, Running, B2B, Design

Links:

- Visit motchi.art: https://motchi.art/
- Verified revenue on TrustMRR: https://trustmrr.com/startup/motchi-art

**The product.** A web app that turns a text prompt or an uploaded photo into a cartoon mascot, then animates it (waving, idling, celebrating) and exports the animation with a transparent background as Lottie JSON, animated WebP or SVG, ready to drop into an app or a website. Users pay with tokens: a free start of 32 tokens, token packs, or monthly plans from US$19.

**Why it worked.** Apps want small animated characters for onboarding screens, empty states and error pages, and the site's own comparison says the usual paths are an animator at US$500 to US$5,000 per character or weeks of learning After Effects. motchi.art chains four AI models and a background-removal step so that one prompt gives a usable file in about five minutes.

Evidence grades: A = disclosed by a public company, a filing or a payment processor, or verified by one; B = two or more independent reports agree, or a journalist confirmed it; C = a founder claim that no one else verified; D = reported, not verified: one founder claim or a third-party estimate with no second source; E = no revenue figure found, so the headline is a non-money fact and the other facts carry their own grades; calc = computed on this page from graded facts.

## Summary

motchi.art makes animated mascots for apps and brands. The user describes a character in a sentence, or uploads a photo or existing artwork, and gets back a short looping animation with a transparent background. The output formats are Lottie, a JSON file format for vector animations that mobile and web apps play with a small library, and animated WebP, an image format that can hold an animation with transparency and plays in a normal image tag. Behind the page is a model chain: several AI models run one after another, each doing one step, so the output of one is the input of the next.

It is one of several small products of Vedran Balagović, a Croatian developer and former CTO who runs them under his company Neural Draft LTD. The first archived copy of the site is from 22 February 2026. TrustMRR, which reads revenue directly from the company's Stripe account, showed US$1,262 in total revenue on 6 November 2026, a peak month of US$376 in May 2026 and US$21.47 in October 2026, with one active subscription worth US$19 a month. The founder listed the business for sale on TrustMRR with an asking price of US$1,250, and wrote there that he has another product to focus on.

The revenue figures are grade A because they come from the payment provider, not from the founder. They are small: this is a page about a working product with a real pipeline and verified sales, not about a large income. The page also shows earlier animation-tool companies that failed when larger design tools added the same features.

## Pricing

motchi.art prices on 6 November 2026, read from the pricing section of the home page (grade C)

| Plan | Per month, billed yearly (US$) | Per month, billed monthly (US$) | Limit |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free |  | 0 | 32 tokens once, about 1 animation, outputs hosted 14 days |
| Creator |  | 19 | 300 tokens a month, about 10 mascot designs or 14 animations |
| Studio |  | 49 | 1,000 tokens a month, priority processing, API access marked coming |
| Token pack 100 | 5 one-time |  | 100 tokens |
| Token pack 500 | 22 one-time |  | 500 tokens |
| Token pack 2,000 | 79 one-time |  | 2,000 tokens |

Prices are in tokens. A new character with its first animation costs about 27 tokens and each new animation of an existing character 18 tokens, according to the site. Token packs are sold separately: 100 tokens for US$5, 500 for US$22 and 2,000 for US$79. No yearly billing is shown, so the yearly column is empty.

## How much revenue does motchi.art make? The numbers, graded

A text-to-mascot animation tool with US$1,262 in Stripe-verified revenue in about nine months, falling since May 2026

| Fact | Value | Grade | Note | Sources |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Total verified revenue, 6 November 2026 | US$1,262 | A | TrustMRR, Verification Sources: Stripe (API key), revenue last synced 6 November 2026. Last 12 months: US$1,239. | [1] |
| Current MRR, 6 November 2026 | US$19 a month, 1 active subscription | A | TrustMRR metric snapshot. IndieMakerList also shows "$19 MRR" for motchi.art, taken from TrustMRR. | [1, 6] |
| Best month | US$376, May 2026 | A | TrustMRR monthly revenue timeline. March 2026: US$325; April: US$161; June: US$142. | [1] |
| Latest months | US$73.46 in July, US$50.47 in August, US$65.47 in September, US$21.47 in October 2026 | A | TrustMRR monthly revenue timeline. The only sale in the last 30 days was on 30 October 2026. | [1] |
| Revenue in the last three months | US$137 | A | TrustMRR period table, to 6 November 2026. | [1] |
| Months with revenue before the product's founding date | US$5.82 each month, November 2025 to February 2026 | A | TrustMRR monthly timeline. The profile's founder-written founding date is 10 March 2026, so these small charges may come from an earlier use of the same Stripe account; no source explains them. | [1] |
| First archived home page | 22 February 2026 | C | Internet Archive copy with the title "motchi.art — AI Character Animation Engine" and "Built by Neural Draft LTD". | [7] |
| Listed for sale | since 4 March 2026, asking US$1,250 | C | TrustMRR acquisition section, founder-written listing. TrustMRR states a revenue multiple of 4.9x and 7 offers received. The founder wrote: "Selling because I have another product to focus on." | [1] |
| Signups claimed by the founder | 200+ | C | Founder's for-sale message on TrustMRR. The home page says "2,400+ mascots designed on motchi.art". | [1, 2] |
| Visitors in the last 30 days | 140 | A | TrustMRR, from the connected Google Analytics account. | [1] |
| AI models in the pipeline | Claude 3.5, Recraft V4 SVG, Flux Kontext Pro, Seedance 1 Pro | C | The company's Why motchi page. ffmpeg and Python remove the green background frame by frame. | [3] |
| Cost of one character with its first animation | about 27 tokens | C | The company's pages give "~27 tokens (~$0.27)". | [3, 4] |
| Price of 27 tokens at the listed pack and plan prices | about US$1.07 to US$1.71 | calc | Calculated: 27 tokens times the price per token of the 2,000-token pack (3.95 cents) and of the Creator plan (6.33 cents). | [2] |
| Team | 1 founder | C | TrustMRR names one founder; IndieMakerList describes a portfolio of micro-SaaS products run under Neural Draft LTD. The Why motchi page signs a quote as "The motchi.art team" without names. | [1, 6, 3] |
| Outside funding | none reported | C | No source mentions investors or a funding round. | [1, 6] |
| Time from first archived page to the November 2026 figure | 9 months | calc | Calculated: February 2026 to November 2026. | [1, 7] |

How to read this table: a grade A value comes from the Verification Sources section of the TrustMRR profile, which reads the company's Stripe account. A grade C value is the company's own page or the founder's own text. A "calc" value was computed on this page from the rows above it.

## When did motchi.art launch, and how did it grow? Timeline

From a first archived home page in February 2026 to a for-sale listing with verified revenue. Each entry carries its grade.

- **November 2025** (grade A [1]): The Stripe account later connected to TrustMRR records US$5.82 a month, before the product's stated founding date.
- **22 February 2026** (grade C [7]): First archived copy of motchi.art: an AI character animation engine, built by Neural Draft LTD.
- **4 March 2026** (grade C [1]): The founder lists the product for sale on TrustMRR.
- **March 2026** (grade A [1]): US$325 in verified revenue, the first large month.
- **May 2026** (grade A [1]): US$376, the best month on the verified timeline.
- **July to October 2026** (grade A [1]): Revenue falls to between US$21 and US$74 a month.
- **6 November 2026** (grade A [1, 2]): US$1,262 total verified revenue, one active US$19 subscription, still listed for sale at US$1,250. The home page now sells the product as custom mascots for apps and brands.

## Why did motchi.art work?

### Model chaining

The Why motchi page describes four AI steps: Claude 3.5 turns the user's text into a character description and a motion prompt, Recraft V4 draws the character as a vector image, Flux Kontext Pro moves it into the start pose on a bright green background, and Seedance 1 Pro turns the still image into 3 to 5 seconds of video. No single model does the whole job.

### Green screen, then file conversion

Video models give a solid background. The pipeline asks for pure green (#00FF00), removes it in every frame with ffmpeg and Python, and packs the frames into animated WebP and Lottie JSON. That last step is ordinary code, and it is what turns a generated video into a file that an app developer can use.

### Tokens instead of seats

Each step costs the company money at the model providers, so the price is per use: a character costs about 27 tokens and a new animation of an existing character 18 tokens. Re-animating a saved character skips the drawing steps, which keeps the cost lower for repeat customers.

### A narrow buyer

The home page now speaks to app makers and brands that want a mascot, not to people who want a funny clip. Lottie is the format those developers already use, so the output needs no conversion on their side.

## How it was built

These details come from the company's own pages and the tech-stack section of the TrustMRR profile. They are grade C.

- Models: Claude 3.5 for the prompt step, Recraft V4 SVG for the character, Flux Kontext Pro for the pose, Seedance 1 Pro for the motion.
- Post-processing with ffmpeg and Python: green-screen removal frame by frame, export to animated WebP, Lottie JSON and SVG.
- Web front end in Vue with Firebase sign-in and database code in the page script; outputs are stored in Google Cloud Storage. TrustMRR lists Node.js, Python, Google Cloud and Tailwind CSS.
- Payments through Stripe, by token packs and monthly plans.
- Measurement with Google Analytics, which is connected to TrustMRR, and Microsoft Clarity on the home page.
- Search pages for buyers: a guide to using Lottie, a comparison with Rive, LottieFiles and After Effects, and a photo-to-animation page.

Sources: [3, 1, 2, 4]

## Who tried this before motchi.art, and why did they fail?

Four companies in our database of failed startups promised easier animation or motion design and failed, mostly when larger design tools added the same features. The values below are from that database and are not independently verified.

The failed startups come from our database of dead startups, retold here in our own words; Its entries are AI-assisted summaries of public sources, so they carry no evidence grade.

### Fuzzwich (2007 to 2010; funding US$20K; cause: Competition)

- Promise: Animation for casual users and small businesses, with drag and drop and no animation skills.
- Why it died: It found no lasting business model, stayed on the desktop web while users moved to phones, and was outpaced by Adobe and later tools.
- Record: 

### Haiku (2018 to 2021; funding US$1.2M; cause: Competition)

- Promise: High-fidelity animations for designers that go straight into a codebase.
- Why it died: Figma and Adobe XD added more prototyping and animation features, so a separate animation tool was less needed.
- Record: 

### Real Artists (2016 to 2019; funding US$3M; cause: Competition)

- Promise: A cloud animation studio where artists and small teams work together remotely.
- Why it died: Incumbents added collaboration to tools that studios already owned, and the small studios it targeted had tight budgets.
- Record: 

### Pixate (2012 to 2016; funding US$3.6M; cause: Competition)

- Promise: Animated native mobile app prototypes without writing code.
- Why it died: Google bought it and did not keep developing it independently, while Figma took the design-tool market.
- Record: 

## What changed

The four predecessors sold software that made a person animate faster: a timeline, a prototyping canvas, a shared studio. The person still had to draw and time the motion, and larger design tools could add the same controls. motchi.art sells the finished file instead: the user writes a sentence and does no animation work at all.

That became possible only when image and video models could be bought by the call, from 2024 onwards, so one developer could chain them without training anything. The same fact is the risk: the hard steps belong to the model providers, and any of them, or a design tool, can offer the same chain. The verified revenue so far, US$1,262 according to TrustMRR, shows that the product sells, but not yet that it holds customers.

## Can one person copy motchi.art now?

**Verdict: Yes, and cheaply, but the sales are the hard part.**

The build is a chain of bought model calls plus ordinary ffmpeg code, which one developer can assemble. The verified numbers show the weak point: a few hundred dollars in good months and a fall after May 2026, with the founder writing that the business needs someone who has distribution he does not.

1. Pick an output format that a specific buyer already uses (here Lottie for app developers) and make the AI produce exactly that file.
2. Split the job into steps and give each step to the model that does it best, then finish with plain code.
3. Ask the video model for a green background so that transparency is a simple filter, not another model.
4. Price per use with tokens, because each generation costs real money at the model providers.
5. Write search pages for the buyer's questions (how to use the format, comparisons with known tools).

**What is still open.** Other file formats that developers and designers need and that models do not produce directly: app icons in every size, animated emoji sets, sprite sheets for games, and motion presets for an existing brand character.

## What could go wrong for motchi.art?

- **Small and falling revenue.** TrustMRR shows US$1,262 in total and US$21.47 in October 2026, against US$376 in May 2026, with one active subscription. The founder listed it for sale on 4 March 2026 at US$1,250 and wrote that he has another product to focus on. A new owner, if there is a sale, could change the product.
- **Counters that do not agree.** The home page says "2,400+ mascots designed on motchi.art". The founder's for-sale message says "200+ signups", and TrustMRR's estimated user count is 0. The home page also shows a "Built with motchi" row of example mascots without naming the companies. None of these were checked.
- **Token price in the help text.** The site says a character costs "~27 tokens (~$0.27)". At the listed prices, 27 tokens cost about US$1.07 (2,000-token pack) to US$1.71 (Creator plan), calculated on this page.
- **Photos of people.** The photo page invites users to upload "a pet, person, logo, or mascot" and suggests "Animate a friend's photo as a cartoon character". The site says the AI makes a cartoon "inspired by the photo — it doesn't trace it exactly". It is not sold as face swap or a realistic likeness; the terms page has an acceptable-use section, and the page has no consent wording for other people's photos.
- **Dependence on model providers.** Every hard step is a bought model: Claude 3.5, Recraft V4, Flux Kontext Pro and Seedance 1 Pro, according to the Why motchi page. A price rise, a change in a model's licence or a provider that sells the same chain itself would hit the margin or the product. TrustMRR shows a 75% profit margin for the last 30 days.
- **Competition.** LottieFiles, Rive and general image and video tools are the alternatives the site itself names. On this site, illustration.app is the closest story: also a one-founder AI art generator with Stripe-verified revenue on TrustMRR, larger at about US$5,600 in total.
- **The owner's other products.** Vedran Balagović also runs Neural Draft (a website and bookings tool driven from an AI assistant), Littlemind (a daily check-in app for parents about a child's mood, sleep and behaviour) and CarsDataset, according to IndieMakerList. motchi.art's pages do not sell or link to them, except for the Neural Draft LTD company name in the footer.

## Sources

1. TrustMRR: Motchi.art, Stripe-verified profile (revenue synced 6 November 2026) — https://trustmrr.com/startup/motchi-art.md (grade A). Read the markdown profile on 6 November 2026. Revenue, MRR, subscriptions, visitors and profit margin are from the Verification Sources section (Stripe, API key; Google Analytics connected), grade A. Founding date, tech stack, the for-sale listing and the seller's message are founder-written, grade C.
2. motchi.art home page: Custom Mascots for Apps & Brands, with its pricing section — https://motchi.art/ (grade C). The page loads its text by script. Read the HTML and the page script of the landing view in full on 6 November 2026. Source for the plans, token packs, the 2,400+ counter and the footer.
3. motchi.art: Why motchi.art? AI Character Animation from Text Prompts in 5 Minutes — https://motchi.art/why-motchi (grade C). Read in full from the page script on 6 November 2026. Source for the model pipeline, the green-screen step, the token costs and Stripe payments.
4. motchi.art: Photo to Cartoon Animation — https://motchi.art/photo-to-animation (grade C). Read in full from the page script on 6 November 2026. Source for the photo upload use cases and the FAQ on price and timing.
5. motchi.art: Terms of Service — https://motchi.art/terms (grade C). Read in full from the page script on 6 November 2026. Source for the token system, non-refundable tokens and content ownership.
6. IndieMakerList: Vedran Balagović (@dr_terapeut), facts checked 20 October 2026 — https://indiemakerlist.com/p/vedran-balagovic/ (grade C). Read in full. A directory profile. Source for the founder's background, Neural Draft LTD and his other products.
7. Internet Archive: motchi.art home page, 22 February 2026 — https://web.archive.org/web/20260222015453/https://motchi.art/ (grade C). Read the title and description of the first archived copy, found through the Wayback availability API. Source for the earliest date the site was live.
8. Database of failed startups, local export — /method/#dead (grade C). Local export. AI-written summaries, not independently verified. Source for the failed predecessors.

Contact: aiolum@livyden.com. Run motchi.art? Send corrections or a verified figure to aiolum@livyden.com (subject: Correction: motchi.art).