AI enterprise software company Jasper has acquired Stability AI's Clipdrop AI image platform.
Clipdrop enables users to edit images, create new images, and create variations in size, detail, and style. The platform provides a set of AI image editing tools, some of which are based on Stability AI's open-source AI models.
The Clipdrop team will become part of Jasper, with Clipdrop co-founder Damien Henry taking a leadership role in research and innovation for the entire Jasper product.
Business customers can now access Clipdrop through the Jasper API, while consumers can continue to purchase the product as a standalone version on Clipdrop.co.
Stability AI acquired Init ML, the team behind Clipdrop, at the beginning of March 2023. The acquisition was preceded by a long partnership. Emad Mostaque, CEO of Stability AI, expects to continue working closely with Init ML.
Mostaque believes that open-source AI companies will be more successful eventually than companies with proprietary AI models, such as OpenAI, because enterprises need in-house models.
The goal of the sale is to expand access to generative AI, whether through "self-hosting with a Stability AI membership, leveraging our self-serve API Developer Platform, or via one of our cloud service provider partners," says Stability AI.
Intel invests in Stability AI
Stability AI, which focuses on open-source generative AI models across all domains, reportedly ran into financial difficulties last year. The Clipdrop acquisition was cited as a key factor behind the company's financial troubles.
In October 2023, Intel provided around $50 million and an AI supercomputer with Xeon processors and 4,000 Gaudi2 AI processors to help Stability AI out.
This principle applies to many investments in the AI sector: large cloud and hardware companies pump money into AI startups, which in turn become customers, and perhaps someday large customers of the investor.
But this cycle can only work if the startups manage to become profitable. Given the dominance of Big AI and the high cost of developing and deploying generative AI, this is a risky proposition.
Stability AI recently released the text-to-image models Stable Diffusion 3 and Stable Cascade, the text-to-3D model Stable Zero123, and Stable Video Diffusion.
