Black Forest Labs, the Andreessen Horowitz-backed startup behind the image creation at xAI’s Grok assistant, has unleashed the beta version of its API with a new model.
The new API offers a managed package for Black Forest Labs’ family of image creation models under the name Flux. According to the company, developers can decide which model version of Flux they want to use inside their app or service. The add-ons include a content moderation layer with image resolution limits.
Base of 2.5 credits per image, 100 credits are $1. Flux1.1 Pro is 4 credits per image. 
Today, Black Forest Labs announced the release of its latest image generation model, Flux1.1 Pro, touting it produces images six times faster than its predecessor, Flux.1 Pro. It can generate images at up to 2k scaling (2048 × 1080), an ability that will be added to the API shortly. In a blog post, Black Forest Labs said this will also improve image quality, prompt adherence, and diversity.
In addition to Black Forest Labs’ proprietary platform, Flux1.1 Pro will also be made available via the startup’s partners: Together AI, Replicate, Fal.AI, and Freepik.
Germany-headquartered Black Forest Labs has just come out of stealth mode with $31 million in funding. Co-founded by engineers behind Stability AI’s technology—Andreas Blattmann, Patrick Esser, Dominik Lorenz, and CEO Robin Rombach—Black Forest Labs.
It was at the centre of the controversy when, in its pact with xAI to make Flux a part of Grok, the vital safety features weren’t included. This led to a ream of pictures that were appalling and gruesome. Black Forest Labs hasn’t reported exactly what data was used to train Flux. However, it appears from the sets of images displayed on xAI that copyrighted materials were indeed present in the training set, raising liability concerns should rights holders decide to file a lawsuit.
Black Forest Labs has some serious backing, including Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan and ex-Oculus CEO Brendan Iribe; it’s working on video-generating models and said to be raising $100 million at a $1 billion valuation. That is a serious jump from the $150 million valuation at which it raised previously.
Of course, this includes API. Training and running models is expensive, and investors usually want to see returns, or at least have a clear plan on how to get to returns.
The path leading to dominance in the generation of media, whether by API or otherwise, is a really long and complicated road for Black Forest Labs, given the notable and growing competition in the space. Ideogram, Pika, Luma, Runway, Stability, and Midjourney are a few of the up-and-coming competitors in the space, but there are also giants such as OpenAI and Google.
