ComfyUI raises $30M at $500M valuation for AI media control tools

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 ComfyUI was started as an open-source project in 2023, shortly after the introduction of diffusion models. The founders developed a modular framework that gives creators granular control over every step of the generation process. In late 2024, ComfyUI raised $19 million in Series A financing from investors including Chemistry Ventures, Cursor Capital, and Guillermo Rauch, founder of Vercel. Yoland Yan, ComfyUI's co-founder and CEO, told TechCrunch that typical prompt-based solutions get only 60% to 80% of the way to a desired output. Changing the remaining 20% requires what Yan compared to playing a slot machine, because prompting a model to make a small change can result in a completely different output, including overwriting parts that were already correct. ComfyUI's node-based interface allows creators to link specific components of the generation process. ComfyUI claims to have over 4 million users. The tool is being used