With the rise of artificial intelligence, a key player in the fast-growing space talks to investors about raising more money after reaching unicorn status in a funding round at the end of the year last.
The parent company of Steady broadcast, an artificial intelligence tool for creating digital images, is seeking to raise funds with a valuation of around $4 billion, according to people familiar with the matter, who asked not to be identified as they are not public. . It is unclear how much capital Stability AI Ltd. seeks to raise in the potential cycle. A final decision has not been made on whether to move forward with the funding and the valuation could still change, the sources added.
London-based Stability, whose investors include Coatue Management and Lightspeed Venture Partners, last raised $101m at a valuation of around $1bn, Bloomberg News reported in October.
Representatives for Stability AI had no comment.
For it to return to the market so soon amid a tech downturn at a much richer valuation underscores how artificial intelligence has become Silicon Valley’s hottest topic in recent months, with the potential to disrupt entertainment, finance and even education.
Microsoft Corp., Bloomberg News reported in January, invests $10 billion in OpenAI, the parent company of ChatGPT, a technology leader with tools capable of generating eerily detailed images, text and other media with a short prompt. LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman said on Friday that he was resign of OpenAI’s board as its venture capital firm increasingly invests in other AI companies.
Other tech giants, including Alphabet Inc., Amazon.com Inc. and Metaplatforms Inc. are also competing to stand out from AI.
Stable Diffusion competes with OpenAI’s Dall-E 2, another digital image tool.
The way Stable Diffusion works is that people type in a description of an image – say an astronaut on horseback – and the program spits out a realistic or surreal image. The company says it stands out from competitors because its open-source software is publicly available. Its practical uses include designing video games to advertisements.
–With the help of Dina Bass.
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