With artificial intelligence (AI) booming, one key player in the fast-growing space is talking to investors about raising more money after reaching unicorn status in a funding round late last year.
The parent company of Stable Diffusion, an AI tool for making digital images, is seeking to raise money at a valuation of about US$4 billion, people familiar with the matter said.
It is not clear how much capital Stability AI Ltd is seeking to raise in the potential round. A final decision has not been made on whether to go ahead with the financing, and the valuation could change, the people added.
Photo: Reuters
London-based Stability, whose investors include Coatue Management LLC and Lightspeed Venture Partners, last raised US$101 million at a valuation of about US$1 billion, Bloomberg News reported in October last year.
Representatives for Stability AI did not provide a comment.
That it is going back to market so soon amid a tech downturn at a much richer valuation underscores how AI in recent months has become the hottest topic in Silicon Valley, with the potential to upend entertainment, finance and even education.
Microsoft Corp is investing US$10 billion in OpenAI, the parent of ChatGPT, a leader in the technology, with tools that can generate uncannily detailed pictures, text and other media with a short prompt, Bloomberg News reported in January.
LinkedIn cofounder Reid Hoffman said on Friday that he was stepping down from the board of OpenAI, as his venture capital firm increasingly invests in other AI companies.
“With all the possibilities ahead, it’s important to think beyond any one application, company, industry when it comes to AI, because I believe its impact will be on a much greater magnitude,” Hoffman wrote in a post on LinkedIn.
Hoffman is a partner at Greylock Partners, and a board member at Microsoft, which bought LinkedIn in 2016 and backs OpenAI.
Hoffman said the AI research company and its board have always monitored his involvement for conflicts of interest, but stepping down would allow him to put to rest any possible issues.
Other tech giants including Alphabet Inc, Amazon.com Inc and Meta Platforms Inc are also competing in the AI space.
Stable Diffusion competes with OpenAI’s Dall-E 2, another digital-image tool.
Stable Diffusion requires people to type a description of an image — for example, an astronaut riding a horse — and the program spits out a realistic or surrealistic picture.
The company says it stands apart from competitors because its open-source software is available to the public. Its practical uses span from designing video games to advertisements.
UNPRECEDENTED PACE: Micron Technology has announced plans to expand manufacturing capabilities with the acquisition of a new chip plant in Miaoli Micron Technology Inc unveiled a newly acquired chip plant in Miaoli County yesterday, as the company expands capacity to meet growing demand for advanced DRAM chips, including high-bandwidth memory chips amid the artificial intelligence boom. The plant in Miaoli County’s Tongluo Township (銅鑼), which Micron acquired from Powerchip Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp (力積電) for US$1.8 billion, is expected to make a sizeable capacity contribution to the company from fiscal 2028, the company said in a statement. It would be an extended production site of Micron’s large-scale manufacturing hub in Taichung, the company said. As the global semiconductor industry is racing to reach US$1 trillion
Singapore-based ride-hailing and delivery giant Grab Holdings Ltd has applied for regulatory approval to acquire the Taiwan operations of Germany-based Delivery Hero SE's Foodpanda in a deal valued at about US$600 million. Grab submitted the filing to the Fair Trade Commission on Friday last week, with the transaction subject to regulatory review and approval, the company said in a statement yesterday. Its independent governance structure would help foster a healthy and competitive market in Taiwan if the deal is approved, Grab said. Grab, which is listed on the NASDAQ, said in the filing that US-based Uber Technologies Inc holds about 13 percent of
Taiwan’s food delivery market could undergo a major shift if Singapore-based Grab Holdings Ltd completes its planned acquisition of Delivery Hero SE’s Foodpanda business in Taiwan, industry experts said. Grab on Monday last week announced it would acquire Foodpanda’s Taiwan operations for US$600 million. The deal is expected to be finalized in the second half of this year, with Grab aiming to complete user migration to its platform by the first half of next year. A duopoly between Uber Eats and Foodpanda dominates Taiwan’s delivery market, a structure that has remained intact since the Fair Trade Commission (FTC) blocked Uber Technologies Inc’s
Memory chip stocks extended their losses yesterday after Alphabet Inc’s Google publicized research that could allow more efficient use of the storage needed for artificial intelligence (AI) development. SK Hynix Inc and Samsung Electronics Co, South Korean leaders in the market, fell more than 6 percent and about 5 percent respectively in Seoul. In the US, Micron Technology Inc, Western Digital Corp and Sandisk Corp slid more than 2 percent in pre-market trading, after they all closed lower on Wednesday. Memory companies have been on a tear in recent months as the rapid development of AI infrastructure triggered a spike in chip
RSS