Tiffany Walling McGarity

Post-pitch story

Tiffany Walling McGarity spent more than 20 years as a professional photographer, so she knew firsthand how easily creators' images get copied without credit or payment. Metapyxl is her answer: a platform for digital watermarking, rights management and licensing that helps creators protect their work and get paid when it's used. The company has grown slowly but steadily. McGarity has led Metapyxl as founder and CEO since 2021 and now runs it with her sister, Jennifer Walling. It's part of the NEC X venture studio community, and in 2025 it reached one of the biggest stages in startups: TechCrunch Disrupt's Startup Battlefield. At that point it reported about $220,000 raised, which is modest, but it's real outside backing for an early-stage company. Metapyxl is also expanding beyond photos into protecting audio rights, an area that matters more now that AI tools can copy and remix creative work at huge scale. The product may have changed since the 2019 pitch, but the mission hasn't: making sure the people who create content stay in control of it. In the AI era, that pitch sounds more timely than ever.