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AI mascot and character animation generator · Croatia

motchi.art: Revenue, team and how it was built

Solo founderB2BDesign

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.Added 6 November 2026

Outcome
US$1.3K in Stripe-verified revenue since launch, November 2026Revenue falling
Evidence
A disclosed by a company or a filing, or verified by a payment processor
Launch
February 2026
Status
Still running
Team
1 founder, Vedran Balagović, under his company Neural Draft LTD; no source names anyone else
Outside funding
None reported
Main channel
Not stated

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.

motchi.art: US$1.3K in Stripe-verified revenue since launch, November 2026. AI mascot and character animation generator, Croatia, solo founder, evidence grade A.
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01

How much revenue does motchi.art make?

Each row shows the evidence grade and the source numbers from the list at the end of this page. The grades are explained in How Aiolum verifies.

A text-to-mascot animation tool with US$1,262 in Stripe-verified revenue in about nine months, falling since May 2026
FactValueGradeHow we knowSources
Total verified revenue, 6 November 2026US$1,262ATrustMRR, Verification Sources: Stripe (API key), revenue last synced 6 November 2026. Last 12 months: US$1,239.[1]
Current MRR, 6 November 2026US$19 a month, 1 active subscriptionATrustMRR metric snapshot. IndieMakerList also shows "$19 MRR" for motchi.art, taken from TrustMRR.[1, 6]
Best monthUS$376, May 2026ATrustMRR monthly revenue timeline. March 2026: US$325; April: US$161; June: US$142.[1]
Latest monthsUS$73.46 in July, US$50.47 in August, US$65.47 in September, US$21.47 in October 2026ATrustMRR monthly revenue timeline. The only sale in the last 30 days was on 30 October 2026.[1]
Revenue in the last three monthsUS$137ATrustMRR period table, to 6 November 2026.[1]
Months with revenue before the product's founding dateUS$5.82 each month, November 2025 to February 2026ATrustMRR 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 page22 February 2026CInternet Archive copy with the title "motchi.art — AI Character Animation Engine" and "Built by Neural Draft LTD".[7]
Listed for salesince 4 March 2026, asking US$1,250CTrustMRR 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 founder200+CFounder's for-sale message on TrustMRR. The home page says "2,400+ mascots designed on motchi.art".[1, 2]
Visitors in the last 30 days140ATrustMRR, from the connected Google Analytics account.[1]
AI models in the pipelineClaude 3.5, Recraft V4 SVG, Flux Kontext Pro, Seedance 1 ProCThe company's Why motchi page. ffmpeg and Python remove the green background frame by frame.[3]
Cost of one character with its first animationabout 27 tokensCThe company's pages give "~27 tokens (~$0.27)".[3, 4]
Price of 27 tokens at the listed pack and plan pricesabout US$1.07 to US$1.71calcCalculated: 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]
Team1 founderCTrustMRR 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 fundingnone reportedCNo source mentions investors or a funding round.[1, 6]
Time from first archived page to the November 2026 figure9 monthscalcCalculated: 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.

motchi.art prices on 6 November 2026, read from the pricing section of the home page (grade C)
PlanPer month, billed yearly (US$)Per month, billed monthly (US$)Limit
Free032 tokens once, about 1 animation, outputs hosted 14 days
Creator19300 tokens a month, about 10 mascot designs or 14 animations
Studio491,000 tokens a month, priority processing, API access marked coming
Token pack 1005 one-time100 tokens
Token pack 50022 one-time500 tokens
Token pack 2,00079 one-time2,000 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.

02

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

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

  1. November 2025AThe Stripe account later connected to TrustMRR records US$5.82 a month, before the product's stated founding date. [1]
  2. 22 February 2026CFirst archived copy of motchi.art: an AI character animation engine, built by Neural Draft LTD. [7]
  3. 4 March 2026CThe founder lists the product for sale on TrustMRR. [1]
  4. March 2026AUS$325 in verified revenue, the first large month. [1]
  5. May 2026AUS$376, the best month on the verified timeline. [1]
  6. July to October 2026ARevenue falls to between US$21 and US$74 a month. [1]
  7. 6 November 2026AUS$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. [1, 2]
03

Why did motchi.art work?

Four causes, in the order they mattered. Each one is a reusable lesson.

01

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.

02

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.

03

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.

04

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. [3, 1, 2, 4]

Tools named in the sources

Each one opens its page in the Tools tab, with every story that uses it.

04

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.

Died 2007 to 2010Burned US$20K

Fuzzwich

The 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.

Competition
Died 2018 to 2021Burned US$1.2M

Haiku

The 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.

Competition
Died 2016 to 2019Burned US$3M

Real Artists

The 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.

Competition
Died 2012 to 2016Burned US$3.6M

Pixate

The 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.

Competition

The failed startups come from our database of 1,749 dead startups, retold here in our own words. Its entries are AI-assisted summaries of public sources, so these cards carry no evidence grade.

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.

05

Can one person copy motchi.art now?

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.

Where it 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.

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

What could go wrong for motchi.art?

The risks are the mirror image of the causes above.

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

The grade next to each source is the best grade that the source can support. "Read in full" means that the text of the page was downloaded and the numbers were checked in it.

  1. A TrustMRR: Motchi.art, Stripe-verified profile (revenue synced 6 November 2026)
    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. C motchi.art home page: Custom Mascots for Apps & Brands, with its pricing section
    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. C motchi.art: Why motchi.art? AI Character Animation from Text Prompts in 5 Minutes
    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. C motchi.art: Photo to Cartoon Animation
    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. C motchi.art: Terms of Service
    Read in full from the page script on 6 November 2026. Source for the token system, non-refundable tokens and content ownership.
  6. C IndieMakerList: Vedran Balagović (@dr_terapeut), facts checked 20 October 2026
    Read in full. A directory profile. Source for the founder's background, Neural Draft LTD and his other products.
  7. C Internet Archive: motchi.art home page, 22 February 2026
    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. C Database of failed startups, local export
    Local export. AI-written summaries, not independently verified. Source for the failed predecessors.

Run this company? Send corrections or a verified figure to aiolum@livyden.com

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