Black Forest Labs, a generative AI research community founded by Robin Rombach, Patrick Esser, and Andreas Blattmann, the original creators of the Stable Diffusion models, has officially launched with a significant funding boost.
The startup has secured €28 million in a seed funding round led by Andreessen Horowitz, with participation from notable investors including Brendan Iribe, Michael Ovitz, Garry Tan, Timo Aila, and Vladlen Koltun. Follow-up investments from General Catalyst and MätchVC also support the company’s mission to bring state-of-the-art AI from Europe to a global audience.
Advertisement
Innovative AI Solutions
Black Forest Labs aims to push the boundaries of generative deep learning models for media such as images and videos. The company introduced the FLUX.1 suite of models, setting new standards in text-to-image synthesis with variants like FLUX.1 [pro], FLUX.1 [dev], and FLUX.1 [schnell]. These models excel in image detail, prompt adherence, style diversity, and scene complexity.
Strategic Expansion and Advisory Board
The funding will enable Black Forest Labs to expand its research and development efforts. The company has also formed an advisory board that includes industry veteran Michael Ovitz and Prof. Matthias Bethge, a pioneer in neural style transfer and a leading expert in European AI research.
Andreessen Horowitz expressed enthusiasm about the partnership: “We’re thrilled to partner with Robin, Patrick, Andreas, and the entire BFL team on this journey. Their commitment to open source, technical excellence, and fostering a collaborative AI ecosystem aligns perfectly with our vision for the future of artificial intelligence.”
With this substantial investment, Black Forest Labs is poised to make significant advancements in generative AI, enhancing creativity, efficiency, and diversity in AI applications.
