Key Takeaways
- uPaint has served over 15,000 creators and is profitable in both Lebanon and the UAE, with retail partnerships at Maliks and Virgin Megastore and a patent-pending Murals by Numbers product that is the first of its kind globally.
- uPaint turned a viral TikTok moment into a global order pipeline, then built a second production line in the UAE when shipping costs made the original model unsustainable, adapting faster than most companies three times its size would have.
- Nobody on the uPaint team knows how to paint. The product was never about artistic skill. It was always about removing the barrier between the desire to create and the ability to do it.
Overview
uPaint is a Lebanese artech company founded in 2021 and headquartered at the American University of Beirut Innovation Park, with manufacturing in Tripoli and a production line in the UAE. The company produces customizable paint-by-number kits, turning any image into a guided painting experience for people with no artistic background whatsoever. It was co-founded by Mohammad Abbas, who leads business development, R&D, and serves as CEO, and Bahaa Eddine Mneymneh, who handles design, software, and operations as COO.
Background
Mohammad and Bahaa did not start uPaint to solve a problem. They started it because they thought it was cool. Both were completing their PhDs in software development and wanted to bring what they were building in theory into something people could physically touch. Neither of them had ever painted before. Nobody on the team has. That turned out to be the point.
As they built the product, the real problem revealed itself: art is not accessible to most people. Not because they do not want to create, but because the skill barrier is real and the learning curve is personal. uPaint removes that barrier entirely. The software does the technical work. The user does the painting. The result is something they made themselves, which turns out to matter enormously to people, especially when it is a portrait of someone they love.
Mission and Approach
uPaint’s premise is simple. Everyone should be able to benefit from the act of creating art, whether for the meditative value, the satisfaction of finishing something, or the meaning that comes from giving someone a painting of their face, their pet, or a moment that mattered. The global personalized gifts market is valued at over $31 billion and growing, driven by consumer appetite for meaningful, customized products over generic alternatives. uPaint sits squarely within that demand.
The company pairs that consumer insight with a software-first approach: the kit is the output, but the proprietary image processing system that generates the numbered zones is the real product. That same software has already enabled an entirely new offering.
Product and Offering
uPaint’s core product is the canvas-by-number kit. The company’s software takes any uploaded image, divides it into numbered zones, and maps each zone to a specific paint color. Each kit includes a numbered canvas, an A3 reference sheet, numbered acrylic paint cups, and a set of three brushes. Ready-made kits ship in three to four business days. Customized kits, where the customer uploads their own photo and selects a size, ship in five to seven business days.
The ready-made collection spans nature, animals, landmarks, abstract designs, classic art, and a dedicated kids range. The platform has also launched exclusive branded collections, including Point à la Lynn, developed in collaboration with a Lebanese influencer, and a Lila TV x uPaint collection, both of which bring the product into new audiences and content contexts.
Murals by Numbers is the company’s most commercially significant product development. It applies the same numbered system to full walls, allowing individuals and organizations to paint large-scale murals with no artistic training required. The patent is pending. The product is live.
On the B2B side, uPaint offers corporate and bulk order services, providing customized kits for employee gifts, event giveaways, and community activations at scale.
Business Model
uPaint operates across B2C and B2B channels. Direct kit sales to individual customers are the primary revenue stream, driven heavily by gifting occasions. Corporate orders and event partnerships represent the B2B channel. Retail placements at Maliks and Virgin Megastore bring the product into physical retail environments where customers can experience it before ordering. An affiliate program extends the brand’s reach through community-driven promotion.
Market and Reach
uPaint sells globally from Lebanon, with orders having come in from Japan, Brazil, and the United States, driven largely by viral TikTok exposure. Rising international shipping costs led the company to establish a dedicated production line in the UAE to serve GCC demand at a commercially sustainable rate. The Tripoli line handles everything else.
Lebanon’s geopolitical instability reinforced the strategic decision to diversify production. Two independent manufacturing bases reduce exposure to local disruption and give the company the operational resilience to keep filling orders regardless of what is happening on the ground.
Funding and Support
uPaint was bootstrapped from the start. In 2023 the company raised from an angel investor, a decision Mohammad credits with shifting the company’s mindset as much as its balance sheet. The company has grown three times in size since. A subsequent investment offer at a strong valuation was declined. The founders are building for longevity, not an exit.
Traction and Growth
uPaint has served over 15,000 creators. The company became profitable in Lebanon last year and in the UAE two months ago. Revenue, profitability margins, and number of partnerships are the three metrics the team watches most closely. Peak seasons, Christmas, Valentine’s Day, and Mother’s Day, consistently produce the highest order volumes, and the company plans its inventory and production around them.
The first sale remains the milestone Mohammad points to as the most meaningful. It confirmed that the product was not just interesting to build but worth buying.
Misconception
Two things confuse people about uPaint consistently. The first is that the company paints for you. It does not. uPaint is a DIY product. The kit arrives and the customer does the painting. The second is a product detail: the canvas is a paper canvas, not a stretched canvas with a wooden frame. It is a distinction that matters for pricing, expectation-setting, and how the finished piece is displayed.
Outlook
The next 6 to 12 months are focused on deepening retail and corporate partnerships, activating the Murals by Numbers product post-patent, and continuing to expand the UAE operation. For a company built by two PhD students who had never painted a day in their lives, the trajectory from side project to profitable multi-market business with 15,000 customers is exactly the kind of story that did not require a playbook.
