Stability AI in talks to raise money from investor group

British artificial intelligence startup Stability AI is in talks with a group of investors for a large equity investment to inject funds into the cash-strapped firm, a company spokesperson told Reuters on Thursday.

"Stability AI is engaged in an exclusivity period with a world-renowned technology investor syndicate," the spokesperson said.

The Information, which first reported the discussions, said the investor group included Facebook's first president, Sean Parker, and former CEO of visual effects company Weta Digital, Prem Akkaraju.

Stability AI generated less than $5 million in revenue and lost more than $30 million in the first quarter and currently owes close to $100 million in outstanding bills to cloud computing providers and others, the news website added.

The reported discussions come weeks after Stability AI laid off some staff as part of a restructuring process and its founder Emad Mostaque resigned as CEO.

The company, which has released AI models to generate audio and video using text prompts, said last October that it had nearly 200 employees around the world.

Stability AI counts among its investors venture capital firm Lightspeed Venture Partners, actor Ashton Kutcher's Sound Ventures, investment management firm Coatue and chipmaker Intel, according to data firms Crunchbase and Pitchbook.