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.
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