Stability AI announced a new $76 million Series B funding round on Tuesday. The startup is the creator of the AI image generation model Stable Diffusion. The fresh capital brings the total amount raised by the company to $232 million.
The investment features a unique lineup of backers from the entertainment industry. Participants include Universal Music Group, Sony Music Group, Warner Music Group, and gaming giant Electronic Arts. Investment firms AMD Ventures and Pacific Alliance Ventures also joined the round.
This roster differs from a standard venture capital lineup. Stability now depends on many of these same companies for content licensing and distribution deals.
Prem Akkaraju joined Stability AI as CEO in 2024. He called the funding an affirmation of their vision where generative AI empowers every producer, musician, and storyteller.
Stability plans to use the new money for two main purposes. The startup will build out its creative production product suite and expand its professional services arm. Stability currently offers models designed for AI music, video, and image generation.
The company was founded in 2019. Over the past year, Stability has signed deals to integrate generative AI into the creative workflows of entertainment companies.
Stability struck partnerships with Universal Music and Electronic Arts last October. The company also partnered with Warner Music last November. These agreements let those companies co-develop Stability tools instead of just licensing the output.
Stability has experienced a mostly winning streak in court recently. The company largely prevailed in a United Kingdom copyright lawsuit filed by Getty Images. Getty had accused Stability of infringing intellectual property rights by using its images to train the image generation model. A judge ruled mostly in favor of Stability in that case.
A similar lawsuit from Getty in the United States remains active in the court system. Stability also faced a 2023 lawsuit from co-founder Cyrus Hodes. Hodes claimed that fellow co-founder Emad Mostaque tricked him into selling his share of the company.
The next known step for Stability AI involves using the $76 million in fresh capital to develop its creative production tools and expand professional services.
