This Black Forest Labs company profile covers the company's valuation, revenue, funding rounds, investors and history. Black Forest Labs works in artificial intelligence, with a focus on image and video generation models. It was founded in 2024 and is headquartered in Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany. Its latest valuation on record is US$3.25 billion (December 2025). Every figure links to a public source, and anything the company hasn't disclosed is marked as such.
Revenue
| Metric | Value | As of | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Total funding | More than US$450 million | December 2025 | Tech Funding News |
Funding history
| Date | Round | Amount | Valuation | Investors | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dec 2025 | Series B | US$300M | US$3.25B | AMP and Salesforce Ventures (co-leads); a16z, Nvidia, Northzone, Creandum, Earlybird VC, General Catalyst, BroadLight Capital | Tech Funding News |
Black Forest Labs timeline
Key dates from the sources on this page, oldest first. Metric snapshots are listed after the funding events.
- 2024 — Black Forest Labs is founded in Freiburg im Breisgau by Robin Rombach (CEO), Andreas Blattmann and Patrick Esser.
- Dec 2025 — Series B: US$300M, valuing the company at US$3.25B. Investors: AMP and Salesforce Ventures (co-leads); a16z, Nvidia, Northzone, Creandum, Earlybird VC, General Catalyst, BroadLight Capital.
- December 2025 — Total funding: More than US$450 million.
Investors
Overview
Black Forest Labs develops FLUX, a family of AI models that generate and edit images from text descriptions and reference pictures. Its models are known for high image quality, accurate rendering of text inside images and fine control over edits. Developers access FLUX through Black Forest Labs' API and through many partner platforms, and some versions are released with open weights that anyone can download and run.
Robin Rombach, the CEO, Andreas Blattmann and Patrick Esser founded the company in 2024 in Freiburg, in Germany's Black Forest region. All three were key researchers behind latent diffusion, the technique underlying Stable Diffusion, one of the most influential AI image models, which they developed at Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich and later at Stability AI. The company also has an office in San Francisco.
FLUX models
- FLUX Pro and Ultra: top-quality models available through the API for commercial use.
- FLUX Dev and Schnell: open-weight models for developers and researchers, with different licence terms.
- FLUX Kontext: models for editing images using text instructions, keeping characters and styles consistent across edits.
- FLUX 2: a later generation with improved text rendering and high-resolution output.
FLUX has been integrated into many products, including Elon Musk's xAI Grok for a period, design tools, and creative apps. Reports in 2025 said Black Forest Labs signed a licensing deal with Meta worth about US$140 million over several years.
Business model
Black Forest Labs earns revenue from API usage, charged per image, from enterprise licensing deals where large companies integrate FLUX into their products, and from commercial licences for some of its open models. The mix of open models, which build a large developer community, and paid commercial access is similar to the approach used by other open-model AI companies. It doesn't publish revenue.
Funding
Black Forest Labs launched in 2024 with about US$31 million in seed funding led by Andreessen Horowitz. In December 2025, it raised a US$300 million Series B at a US$3.25 billion valuation, co-led by AMP and Salesforce Ventures, with existing investors including a16z, Nvidia, Northzone, Creandum, Earlybird VC, General Catalyst and BroadLight Capital. Total funding exceeds US$450 million. The company said the money would scale research, increase computing capacity and expand teams in Freiburg and San Francisco.
Competition
Black Forest Labs competes with image models from OpenAI, Google (Imagen and Gemini image models), Midjourney, Adobe Firefly, Stability AI, Ideogram, Recraft and Chinese labs. It increasingly faces competition in video generation too. Its advantages are model quality, open-weight releases that create goodwill with developers, and a research team with a track record of foundational work in image generation.
Black Forest Labs at a glance
Black Forest Labs is a Freiburg, Germany AI company founded in 2024 by Robin Rombach, Andreas Blattmann and Patrick Esser, researchers behind latent diffusion and Stable Diffusion. It makes the FLUX image generation and editing models. It raised a US$300 million Series B at US$3.25 billion in December 2025, co-led by AMP and Salesforce Ventures, bringing total funding to more than US$450 million.
From research to company
The founders' path illustrates how AI research becomes commercial value. Their academic work on latent diffusion made it possible to generate high-quality images efficiently on ordinary hardware. Stability AI turned that research into Stable Diffusion, which spread rapidly but struggled as a business. The researchers then left to start their own company, keeping the open-research spirit while building a clearer commercial model around API access and enterprise licensing. Investors backed them largely because of that track record.
Copyright and responsible use
Image generation raises legal and ethical issues: whether training on copyrighted images is lawful, whether outputs infringe on artists' styles or trademarks, and how to prevent misuse such as deepfakes or non-consensual imagery. Lawsuits against image model companies, particularly in the US and UK, could shape the industry. Enterprise customers often prefer providers that offer clear licensing, safety filters and, in some cases, indemnities against copyright claims. How Black Forest Labs handles these issues will matter for its enterprise growth.
Europe's AI model makers
Black Forest Labs is one of a small group of European companies building frontier AI models, alongside Mistral AI in France and others. Germany's strong research universities and a desire for European AI capabilities have supported these companies. For European businesses, local model providers can be attractive for data protection and regulatory reasons, including the EU AI Act.
Questions for businesses choosing an image model
- What are the licence terms for commercial use of generated images?
- Does the provider offer indemnity or protection against copyright claims?
- Can you run the model privately for sensitive work?
- How consistent are characters, products and brand styles across many images?
From images to video
The next frontier for generative media is video. Generating consistent, high-quality video is much harder than single images, because motion, physics and characters must stay coherent across many frames. OpenAI, Google, Runway, and several Chinese companies have released video models, and competition is intense. For Black Forest Labs, expanding into video is a natural step that builds on its image expertise, but it requires far more computing power, which is one reason for its large funding round. Success in video would widen its market considerably, from design and marketing into film and advertising.
Looking ahead
Watch new FLUX releases, video generation products, major licensing deals, any new funding round and legal developments around training data.
For readers
Marketing and design teams can use FLUX through many tools for product imagery and concepts. Developers can build on open-weight versions. Investors should weigh strong research credentials against intense competition from much larger AI companies.
Latest developments (October 2026)
Black Forest Labs has not announced a new round since its US$300 million Series B in December 2025 at US$3.25 billion, so that remains the latest confirmed valuation. Its FLUX image models remain widely used by creative apps and inference platforms such as Fal.ai, and it competes with OpenAI, Google and Midjourney in image generation. See our AI video and image generation guide.
Sources
Every figure on this page comes from the public sources below. Where sources disagreed, we used the company's own announcement or a primary news report. Private-company data changes; check the date beside each figure.
Frequently asked questions
What does Black Forest Labs do?
Black Forest Labs is a artificial intelligence / image and video generation models company headquartered in Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany. It was founded in 2024.
What is Black Forest Labs's valuation?
Black Forest Labs was valued at US$3.25 billion as of December 2025, according to Yahoo Finance (TechCrunch). Private company valuations are set at funding rounds or share sales and can change significantly between them.
How much revenue does Black Forest Labs make?
Black Forest Labs is a private company and has not publicly disclosed its revenue. Figures on third-party sites are usually modelled estimates rather than numbers reported by the company.
What was Black Forest Labs's latest funding round?
The most recent financing we have verified is a series b in Dec 2025: US$300M, at a valuation of US$3.25B. Source: Tech Funding News.
Who are Black Forest Labs's investors?
Investors named in public announcements include AMP, Salesforce Ventures, Andreessen Horowitz, Nvidia, Northzone, Creandum, Earlybird VC, General Catalyst and BroadLight Capital.
Who founded Black Forest Labs?
Black Forest Labs was founded in 2024 by Robin Rombach (CEO), Andreas Blattmann and Patrick Esser.
Is Black Forest Labs a public company?
No. Black Forest Labs is a private company (private, venture backed), so its shares are not traded on a stock exchange and it isn't required to publish its financial results.
Where is Black Forest Labs headquartered?
Black Forest Labs is headquartered in Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany.