Lumikai Leads $600K Pre-Seed Round in Demoverse as AI Lets Consumers Help Build Products

Demoverse has raised $600,000 in pre-seed funding to build an AI-powered platform that lets consumers help brands design products before they enter production. Lumikai led the round, India’s specialist venture capital firm focused on interactive media, digital platforms, and gaming. Lumikai invested $500,000 through its Pixels pre-seed program, while UAE-based investor-operator Marlan and a group of angel investors also participated.

The funding gives Demoverse capital to turn early brand experiments into paid campaigns, expand into the US market, and grow its community of consumer creators.

From User-Generated Content to User-Generated Products

Demoverse is built around a simple proposition: instead of brands attempting to predict what consumers will eventually buy, consumers can help shape products before companies spend heavily on manufacturing.

The startup describes this model as a shift from User-Generated Content (UGC) to User-Generated Products (UGP).

Brands can publish a product concept or design direction on Demoverse while establishing boundaries around what consumers can change. Users then employ AI tools to modify, refine, and reinterpret the concept.

The wider community can subsequently review and vote on the different directions. The strongest concepts provide brands with both a potential product direction and an early signal of consumer demand.

Contributors whose ideas ultimately become part of a commercialized product can also receive royalties, giving consumers a financial stake in products they help create.

AI Meets Consumer Product Development

The company’s model arrives as artificial intelligence makes visual creation significantly faster and more accessible.

Demoverse argues that this could change the traditional relationship between brands and consumers. Instead of relying primarily on surveys, focus groups, and trend forecasts, companies can invite customers into the actual product-development process.

The opportunity could be particularly significant in fashion, where consumers often have strong opinions about design, styling and visual identity.

Demoverse is initially focusing on fashion but plans to expand its co-creation model into beauty, consumer packaged goods, and other consumer categories.

The company has already conducted early trials with Indian consumer brands and intends to use its new funding to convert those relationships into paid campaigns.

Founder’s Deep-Tech Background Shapes Demoverse

Demoverse was founded by Akshay Mehta, whose previous experience included helping build the UAE’s first commercial-scale satellite manufacturing facility.

That experience raised the startup’s central question: could AI make product creation accessible to a much larger group of people?

Before launching Demoverse, Mehta spent eight years in investing, consulting, and operating roles, including positions at Bain, Z47, Asia Alternatives, and the Royal Group’s deep-tech investment platform in the UAE.

“Two decades of social media have trained people to form and express opinions on everything they see,” Akshay Mehta said. He added that AI could bring those opinions into visual product creation while allowing consumers to benefit from commercial success.

Lumikai Bets on Interactive Consumer Platforms

For Lumikai, the investment reflects its broader view that AI will increasingly turn audiences from passive consumers into active participants in digital and commercial experiences.

Salone Sehgal, Founder and Managing Partner at Lumikai, said AI could enable brands to create an enormous range of products, but argued that the central challenge remains determining what consumers actually want.

She described Demoverse’s approach as a way to let consumers shape products before they are manufactured, rather than simply asking what they might purchase.

What Comes Next for Demoverse?

The $600,000 Demoverse funding round will support three immediate priorities: converting early brand partnerships into paid campaigns, establishing the company’s US go-to-market strategy, and expanding its consumer creator community.

The startup is also part of the NVIDIA Inception program, adding another connection to the broader AI startup ecosystem.

If Demoverse’s model gains traction, its UGP approach could offer consumer brands a new way to combine AI-generated design, community participation, and demand validation before committing to production.