Valuation of the company behind Stable Diffusion climbs to $6.9 billion, just one month after the project's launch

After Stable Diffusion exploded onto the AI painting scene with its "free and open source" project, the valuation of the company behind it quickly climbed to $1 billion (about $6.9 billion).

Stability AI is preparing a funding round of $100 million (about 690 million yuan), according to sources close to the situation. This comes just after they raised at least $10 million through a SAFE note at a $100 million valuation.

Now, as multiple investors have revealed their interest in Stability AI, its valuation has soared from $100 million, to $500 million, and eventually to $1 billion. And it's only been a month since Stable Diffusion was launched to the public.

And Stability AI doesn't even have a clear business model yet - Stable Diffusion is just a free project open sourced on GitHub. The founders have told the world not to worry about this, as they have already partnered with the government and other agencies.

Open? For Profit?

Stable Diffusion's success is largely due to its openness. Unlike Dall-E and Midjourney, it is completely free, unlimited, and available to anyone. The hardware requirements are not high either, as it can run on an ordinary graphics card with less than 10GB of video memory, and it can generate HD images in seconds.

In terms of generation effect, it can be said to be no less than Dall-E and Midjourney, so it has become popular on social media platforms.

The project has already garnered over 20,000 stars on GitHub.

But controversy has come along with it. Some time ago, a group of artists got into a fight and reported an unofficial account to be blocked due to the proliferation of Stable Diffusion's use, which involved art copyright.

Reddit has already banned four communities dedicated to generating sensitive images with Stable Diffusion.