Amid fundraising speculations, Stability AI acquired Init ML

The company that created the Stable Diffusion generative artificial intelligence model, Stability AI Ltd., announced on 8 March to have acquired photo editing service provider, Init ML for an undisclosed amount. The acquired company is the developer of the acclaimed AI-powered imaging tool, Clipdrop. 

First acquisition by Stability AI 

Since the launch of Stability AI in 2021, this will be considered its first acquisition. The announcement comes after the recent rumours from the company, which highlighted its plan to raise money at a $4 billion value. 

London-based Stability AI, while highlighting the number of Stable Diffusion users to stand at 1 million in October 2022, expressed excitement over the recent acquisition of Init ML. As reported, the acquisition of Init ML could help Stability AI expand its installed user base. 

As per the information, CEO of Init ML, Cyril Diagne, will serve as Vice President of Innovation for Clipdrop, along with Senior Vice President of Product, Damien Henry, and Vice President of Engineering, Jonathan Blanchet.

What does this deal bring to the table? 

The recent acquisition between both parties allows Clipdrop with the Stability AI's technology and computing power to develop the newest generation of image tools.  According to Emad Mostaque, the founder and CEO of Stability AI, the agreement represents a new turning point in both companies' efforts to democratise the use of AI and multimodal foundation models in creative workflows.

Init ML, a Paris-based company, was established in July 2020 with funding provided by AI venture capital firm 'Air Street Capital.' Init's flagship suite of imaging applications, Clipdrop has over 15 million users as of now. At the moment, Clipdrop includes cutting-edge machine learning research like 'Remove Background and Super Resolution,' along with Stability AI's potent generative AI models that are said to be integrated into its beta applications.

The strategic acquisition occurs against the backdrop of Stability AI's premier text-to-image technology, Stable Diffusion, which is open-source. The tool attracted attention from the general public and was praised by AI pioneers for being unrestricted and free. Andrej Karpathy, the former director of AI at Tesla who recently joined OpenAI, appreciated Stable Diffusion and declared that tool to be a day of historic proportions for human innovation.