Tech
ComfyUI hits $500M valuation as creators seek more control over AI-generated media
ComfyUI, a startup that helps creators control image, video, and audio outputs from diffusion models with a node-based workflow, has raised a $30 million funding round at a $500 million valuation.
The round was led by Craft Ventures, with participation from other investors including Pace Capital, Chemistry, and TruArrow.
ComfyUI was started as an open-source project in 2023, shortly after the introduction of diffusion models. At that time, models like Midjourney and OpenAI’s DALL-E were barely functional, frequently making major mistakes, such as adding extra fingers to hands.
To address these limitations, the project founders developed a modular framework that gives creators granular control over every step of the generation process.
Their tool gained such significant traction among creative professionals that it eventually evolved into a formal startup. In late 2024, ComfyUI raised $19 million in Series A financing from investors including Chemistry Ventures, Cursor Capital, and Guillermo Rauch, founder of Vercel.
Although the latest diffusion models have come a long way from adding a sixth digit to hands, the need for the granular precision that ComfyUI offers has only grown.
“If you think about your typical prompt-based solution, like Midjourney or ChatGPT, you ask for something, it [gets only] 60% – 80% there,” Yoland Yan, ComfyUI’s co-founder and CEO, told TechCrunch. “But to change that remaining 20%, you have to try this slot machine.”
Yan (pictured left) compared the process to playing in a casino because prompting the model to make a small change can result in a completely different output, including overwriting the parts that were already perfect.
ComfyUI’s node-based interface allows creators to link specific components of the generation process, giving them full control over the quality of their final output.
“You cannot easily convey that message in the prompt box [of a foundational model],” Yan said.
Creators seem to agree, as ComfyUI claims to have over 4 million users.
The tool is being used by creative professionals for visual effects, animation, advertising, and even industrial design.
The startup says its offering has become such a necessary tool of the trade for technical artists and other creatives that it is not uncommon to see “ComfyUI artist or engineer” listed as a job title on studio job boards.
Although video and image foundational models continue to improve, Yan claims that they are far from perfect, and a tool like ComfyUI will continue to be in high demand.
“In the world where AI slop is going to be everywhere, the Comfy version of human-in-the -loop approach is going to win out most of the eyeballs in the end,” he said.
ComfyUI’s competitors include Weavy, a startup that was acquired by Figma last year.
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Tech
Anthropic created a test marketplace for agent-on-agent commerce
In a recent experiment, Anthropic created a classified marketplace where AI agents represented both buyers and sellers, striking real deals for real goods and real money.
The company admitted this test — which it called Project Deal — was only “a pilot experiment with a self-selected participant pool” of 69 Anthropic employees who were given a budget of $100 (paid out via gift cards) to buy stuff from their coworkers.
Nonetheless, Anthropic said it was “struck by how well Project Deal worked,” with 186 deals made, totaling more than $4,000 in value.
The company said it actually ran four separate marketplaces with different models — one that was “real” (where everyone was represented by the company’s most-advanced model, and with deals actually honored after the experiment) and another three for study.
Apparently, when users are represented by more advanced models, they get “objectively better outcomes,” Anthropic said. But users didn’t seem to notice the disparity, raising the possibility of “‘agent quality’ gaps” where “people on the losing end might not realize they’re worse off.”
Also, the initial instructions given to the agents didn’t appear to affect sale likelihood or the negotiated prices.
Tech
Nuclear startup X-energy raises $1B in data center-driven IPO
Nuclear startup X-energy raised $1 billion in its initial public offering yesterday, selling 44.3 million shares for $23 each, a hefty premium above the $16 to $19 per share it was seeking. Initially, the company had hoped to raise around $800 million.
The stock is expected to begin trading on Friday on the Nasdaq Exchange under the ticker XE.
X-energy is building small modular reactors capable of generating electricity or delivering heat to industrial processes. The company has a deal with Dow to provide heat and power to a chemical plant in Texas and another with Amazon to sell as much as 5 gigawatts of nuclear power by 2039. Amazon’s Climate Pledge Fund led X-energy’s Series C-1 round.
Nuclear startups like X-energy have been buoyed by surging demand for electricity from data centers and other parts of the economy that have been electrifying.
The company says its reactors will generate 80 megawatts of electricity. Each Xe-100 reactor is cooled by helium gas, which flows over billiard ball-sized “pebbles” that are packed with BB-sized TRISO fuel pellets. TRISO fuel, which contains a kernel of uranium wrapped in carbon and silicon, was developed years ago to be safer than existing fuel designs, though it hasn’t been widely used. X-energy says its fuel can withstand higher temperatures, helping to keep the fuel contained and reduce the potential of a meltdown.
Tech
Marked-up Mac minis flood eBay amid shortages driven by AI
Overpriced Mac minis are flooding eBay amid shortages of the sold-out machines, which have become a favored tool for running on-device AI models like OpenClaw.
This week, reports indicated that the $599 M4 Mac mini base model with 16GB RAM and 256GB of storage is sold out on Apple’s retail website, with no options for delivery or in-store pickup. The shortages have since extended to other configurations of the base model, regardless of the amount of memory selected. This is the first time the base model has been sold out, some outlets noted. Meanwhile, models with higher storage (512GB and up) are only available to ship starting in June.
As a result, eBay has become a secondary market for these in-demand computers. On the site, various configurations of the M4 Mac mini are available for sale at higher prices than if buying direct from Apple, which is no longer an option.
Apple’s power-efficient Mac minis have become popular devices for testing and running at-home, on-device AI models, beginning with the OpenClaw craze but now extending to OpenClaw alternatives like ZeroClaw, other AI tools from Anthropic and OpenAI, Perplexity Computer, or other specialized local models. Unlike some PCs, Mac minis also run quietly and tend to be more reliable for 24/7 use, compared with laptop computers.
The shortage of the devices also comes alongside an industry-wide memory crunch and plans for a Mac mini refresh, according to Bloomberg. However, refreshes of product lines haven’t led to shortages before.
Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
This perfect storm of supply chain stress and increased demand for AI-friendly machines has inflated the prices of used consumer electronics.
As of Friday morning, M4 base models with the 16GB RAM/256GB SSD configuration were selling at markups like $715-$795 for a new, “open box” model, and as high as $979 for an “excellent” refurbished version. Some “lightly used, pre-owned” Mac minis with this configuration were selling for around $700 — more than $100 more than the price of a new base model.
There was also a single listing for a $925 brand-new M4 Mac mini with the same 16GB RAM and 256GB storage; the listing warned in bright red text: “Last one.”
While you still may be able to score a reasonably priced refurb if you keep a close eye out (or if you win an eBay auction where the bid has started at a lower price point), it seems that the demand for the device is going to keep prices up until Apple’s supply chain refreshes.
And now that the Mac mini is unavailable, Apple has begun to see increased demand for the Mac Studio, too. That computer is also now sold out across several configurations.
As Ars Technica pointed out, you can still get a MacBook Pro with 128GB RAM and larger SSDs within a few weeks, and even the new and popular MacBook Neo is still shipping within two to three weeks. This suggests the real issue is consumer demand for the Mac mini itself.
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