image-editing
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Black Forest Labs puts imagination on tap
The researchers behind Stable Diffusion built FLUX for people who build other things. Their bet: the image model that travels furthest becomes part of the furniture.
Bria AI puts a price on permission
The image is only half the product. Bria is building visual AI around licensed training data, payments to rights holders, and controls that let a business ask for the same thing twice.
Proactive Media put the night shift on another continent
California conversations. Bangladesh production. Proactive Media built its image-editing business around a simple proposition: the work can keep moving after the client goes home.
GIMP costs nothing. Keeping it free takes work.
The image editor born at Berkeley still lets anyone retouch, paint and build without a subscription. Behind the free download is a very human operation: volunteer developers, artist patrons and decades of unfinished business.
OpenArt AI
OpenArt AI is a San Francisco-based AI creative platform founded in 2022 by former Google engineers Coco Mao and John Qiao. The platform aggregates 100+ AI models - including DALL-E 3, Stable Diffusion, Google Veo 3, Kling, and Sora - under a single interface, letting creators generate images, videos, music, and 3D environments without switching tools. From hobbyists making tabletop RPG art to agencies building brand-consistent content at scale, OpenArt serves roughly 8 million monthly active users. The company reached $70M+ ARR in 2025 with a 20-person team, then closed a $30M Series A led by Canaan Partners in January 2026.