Why Rawissimo exists
We didn't want to build
a smarter AI.
We wanted to build a better feeling.
Every AI storybook tool starts with the model. We started somewhere else — with the moment a child sees themselves as the hero of something, and realises the story was written just for them. The technology is how we get there. It was never the point.
"Emotions over AI." Not a slogan — the actual order we build in.
We use GPT-4o-mini to write, gpt-image-1.5 and Gemini to illustrate, and text-to-speech to narrate — because those are the tools available today. Tomorrow they'll be different tools. What won't change is the standard we hold every story to: does this make a family feel something real? If the answer is no, the technology behind it doesn't matter.
Four rules we don't break.
The child comes first, the model comes second
Every feature decision starts with "does this make the story feel more like theirs," not "what can the model now do."
Preview before payment, always
You see every illustrated page before you're asked to pay. If it isn't right, we don't charge for it.
Photos are borrowed, not kept
A child's photo is used only to build their illustrated character, then deleted from our servers within 90 days.
Five languages, and growing
English, French, Spanish, Romanian and Arabic today. As we grow, so does the list — and so does the quality bar for every language on it.
Three people, three continents' worth of experience, one belief.
We didn't come from children's publishing. We came from enterprise cloud, AI infrastructure and cross-border operations — and we're betting that's exactly the combination this product needs to go from a good idea to a real company.
Emilia-Andreea Nicolae
Co-founder — Operations & Customer Experience
Enterprise Support Manager at AWS, leading cloud and enterprise customer relationships at scale. Brings the operational discipline of supporting large, demanding customers to how Rawissimo treats every parent who trusts us with their child's photo and story.
LinkedIn ↗ Based in Paris, FranceOthman Lahoui
Co-founder — AI & Cloud Architecture
AI Cloud Architect at AWS. Owns the technical backbone of Rawissimo — the generation pipeline that turns a photo and a few details into a consistent illustrated character across every page, reliably and at scale.
LinkedIn ↗ Based in Paris, FranceGaurav Kumar
Co-founder — Growth & MENA Expansion
Founder of Meridian Advisory & Herbs Fusion SRL, where he ran end-to-end European market entry — compliance, customs, demand — for Indian wellness and beauty brands. Relocating to Abu Dhabi to build Rawissimo's UAE base and lead expansion into the wider MENA region.
LinkedIn ↗ Relocating to Abu Dhabi, UAEWhy we're moving
to the UAE — not just visiting.
Rawissimo already speaks English, French, Spanish, Romanian and Arabic. One of our three founders is relocating to Abu Dhabi to build our regional base from the ground up — not to run a satellite office, but to lead the next phase of the company from inside a market we can already speak to on day one.
- Arabic is already live, alongside English, French, Spanish, Romanian and Arabic — not bolted on later
- The UAE's gifting culture and multigenerational family life fit naturally with what Rawissimo already does best
- A founder living and operating in Abu Dhabi, not a remote go-to-market plan run from Europe
- Abu Dhabi as a base to reach the wider GCC and South Asian diaspora markets our founders already understand personally
Where we are today
We're an early-stage team with a working product — real AI story generation, real payments, real users testing it today — built by three operators from AWS and cross-border commerce, not by children's publishing veterans. We think that's a feature, not a gap: this is a product that needs technical reliability and operational trust more than it needs a background in picture books. What we're looking for from Hub71 is exactly what an early team building toward the UAE needs — a base, a network, and the validation that lets the next conversation be easier than this one.
This is who's building it.
Now go see what
we built it for.
One photo. A few true details. A story that could only ever belong to them.