After achieving unicorn status in a funding round before the end of the previous year, one of the most important players in the rapidly expanding field of artificial intelligence is currently in discussions with investors over the possibility of raising additional capital.
According to people familiar with the matter who asked not to be identified because it isn’t public, the parent company of Stable Diffusion, an artificial intelligence tool for making digital images, is attempting to raise money at a valuation of approximately $4 billion. This information comes from people who are familiar with the matter.
It is unclear how much funds Stability AI Ltd. intends to raise through the possible round of funding at this time. According to the persons, a final choice has not been made regarding whether or not to proceed with the financing, and it is possible that the valuation will shift in the future.
According to a report from Bloomberg News in October, the London-based company Stability, which has investors such as Coatue Management and Lightspeed Venture Partners, just secured a total of $101 million at a valuation of approximately $1 billion. Officials from Stability AI did not make a remark in response to our request for one.
The fact that it is going back to market so soon in the midst of a tech downturn at a much richer valuation highlights how artificial intelligence has become the hottest topic in Silicon Valley in recent months. Artificial intelligence has the potential to upend a variety of industries, including education, finance, and even entertainment.
Bloomberg News reported in January that Microsoft Corporation is investing $10 billion in OpenAI, the parent company of ChatGPT, a market leader in the field with tools that can generate uncannily detailed pictures, text, and other media with only a brief cue. On Friday, Reid Hoffman, one of the co-founders of LinkedIn, said that he would be stepping away from the board of OpenAI since his venture capital firm is increasingly investing in other artificial intelligence businesses.
Other colossal companies in the computer industry, such as Alphabet Inc., Amazon.com Inc., and Meta Platforms Inc., are also vying for the lead in artificial intelligence. Another digital picture tool, Stable Diffusion competes with OpenAI’s Dall-E 2, which was developed by OpenAI.
People use the Stable Diffusion program by inputting a description of an image, such as “an astronaut riding a horse,” and the program then generates a picture that is either realistic or surrealistic based on that description. The fact that the corporation makes its software accessible to the general public gives it a competitive advantage, according to the business. The creation of video games and commercials are just two of its many applications in the real world.