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Midjourney

54 major milestones

Independent research lab and company (Midjourney, Inc.) creating the Midjourney generative AI text-to-image service; widely used via Discord and a web interface.

Latest Valuation
$5,000,000,000
0 Funding Rounds

Company Timeline

Years -5--1

Core engineering team recruited (~10 engineers)

David Holz recruited a core team of about ten engineers to train diffusion models and build the product.

Year -1 • 2021

Founder departs Leap Motion and begins new project

David Holz left Leap Motion (Aug 2021) and began forming the team that would become Midjourney.

Year -1 • 2021

Private demo launched

Midjourney launched its first private demo to early testers (first private demo described Sept 2021).

Year -1 • 2021

Years 0-4

Midjourney self-funded / no VC (public statements)

Company and founder statements repeatedly described Midjourney as self-funded with no outside VC funding since founding.

Year 0 • 2022

Controversial competition win (Colorado State Fair)

A Midjourney-generated image (Théâtre D'opéra Spatial) won first prize in the Colorado State Fair digital art competition, sparking debate about AI art in competitions.

Year 0 • 2022

Training infrastructure: began using Google TPUs (from V4)

From V4 onward the MJ models were reported trained on Google TPUs (public statements around Nov 2022).

Year 0 • 2022

Third-party valuation reported ($10.5B claim — market tracker)

Some market trackers (SEO.ai and similar aggregator profiles) reported a $10.5 billion valuation figure for Midjourney (2022); this figure is not company-disclosed and conflicts with other self-funded claims.

Year 0 • 2022Valuation: $10,500,000,000

Version 1 (V1) model released

Initial internal/public model iteration (V1) of Midjourney released (Feb 2022).

Year 0 • 2022

Discord server launched (seed/training request)

Midjourney Discord server launched (a March 14, 2022 post requested high-quality photographs for training).

Year 0 • 2022

Model V2 released

Midjourney started testing its Version 2 algorithm (improved characters/animals).

Year 0 • 2022

Public Discord bot release (general public access)

Midjourney released publicly in the form of a Discord bot, allowing community-driven image generation (Feb–July 2022 public rollout; widely used on Discord).

Year 0 • 2022

Entered open beta (official)

Midjourney announced it was moving to open beta on Twitter; date widely cited as July 12, 2022.

Year 0 • 2022

Model V3 released

Midjourney began testing its V3 image generation algorithms on July 25, 2022.

Year 0 • 2022

Community reaches ~1 million members

Holz stated the Midjourney community had roughly one million members by August 2022.

Year 0 • 2022

Company reported profitable

Founder David Holz said Midjourney was already profitable as of August 2022 (six months after public launch).

Year 0 • 2022

Model V4 (alpha) released

Alpha iteration of Midjourney V4 released (significant quality improvements; from V4 onward models trained on Google TPUs).

Year 0 • 2022

Niji anime model released

Niji model (anime-focused) was introduced (first Niji model released Dec 20, 2022).

Year 0 • 2022

AI-generated children's book released

An AI-generated children's book, 'Alice and Sparkle', used Midjourney for all illustrations and drew criticism from illustrators (Dec 2022).

Year 0 • 2022

Legal / regulatory risk increases as class actions and suits mount

Multiple lawsuits and public debate over training data, copyright, and model outputs elevated legal/regulatory scrutiny through 2023–2025.

Year 1 • 2023

Reported revenue: $200M ARR (2023)

Multiple industry reports and research estimated Midjourney's revenue at $200M in 2023 (annual recurring revenue reported around this figure).

Year 1 • 2023Valuation: $2,000,000,000

Content moderation policy overhaul (May 2023)

Midjourney replaced word-blocklist moderation with an AI-powered content moderation system (May 2023 onward), enabling more context-aware filtering.

Year 1 • 2023

User-to-paying conversion & subscriber economics (industry estimates)

Industry estimates (Sacra / trackers) suggested mid-to-high single-digit percent of Discord members were paying subscribers in 2023–2024; Sacra estimated ~1.4M paying customers in 2024 based on blended pricing assumptions.

Year 1 • 2023

Copyright lawsuit filed by three artists

Sarah Andersen, Kelly McKernan, and Karla Ortiz filed suit against Stability AI, Midjourney, and DeviantArt alleging training on artists' works without consent (Jan 13, 2023).

Year 1 • 2023

Company ends free trials / monetization tightening

Midjourney stopped offering free trials and began tightening access (Mar 2023); by Aug 2023 users had to subscribe to generate images themselves.

Year 1 • 2023

Model V5 (alpha) released

Alpha iteration of Midjourney V5 announced (March 15, 2023); major step in image fidelity and prompt handling.

Year 1 • 2023

Niji 5 released (anime model update)

Niji 5 (anime-optimized model) released April 2, 2023 to improve anime-style generations.

Year 1 • 2023

V5.1 released

Midjourney V5.1 released (May 3, 2023) with improved image qualities and stylization behavior.

Year 1 • 2023

V5.2 released (zoom-out & aesthetics)

Version 5.2 added an 'aesthetics system' and a 'zoom out' feature to generate surroundings around an image (June 22, 2023).

Year 1 • 2023

Judge allows amended complaint after partial dismissal

A U.S. District Judge inclined to dismiss most claims in the artists' lawsuit but allowed plaintiffs to file a new complaint (July 2023).

Year 1 • 2023

Vary (Region) feature launched

Vary (Region) feature (select an area of an image and vary only that region) released as part of V5.2 updates.

Year 1 • 2023

Community size: 16.4M users (Nov 2023)

Reported Discord member counts and community growth: 16.4M members in Nov 2023 (registered on Midjourney Discord).

Year 1 • 2023

Additional copyright lawsuit (Nov 2023)

Another lawsuit filed in Nov 2023 alleging use of copyrighted works of thousands of artists by Midjourney, Stability AI and others.

Year 1 • 2023

Hire: Ahmad Abbas joins as Head of Hardware

Ahmad Abbas (formerly led Apple hardware engineering for Vision Pro) joined Midjourney as Head of Hardware (Dec 2023).

Year 1 • 2023

Model V6 (alpha) released

Alpha iteration of Midjourney V6 announced (Dec 21, 2023) — trained from scratch over ~9 months, improved text rendering and literal prompt interpretation.

Year 1 • 2023

Community growth: 17.5M (Dec 2023 reported as monthly)

Discord membership reported around 17.5M end-2023/Dec 2023 to Jan 2024 timeframe (growth tracking across months).

Year 2 • 2024

Niji 6 released

Niji 6 (anime-focused) released Jan 29, 2024 to further improve anime domain outputs.

Year 2 • 2024

Employee headcount expands (data points)

Reported headcount growth: ~11 employees (2022), ~50 employees (2023), and industry articles citing ~131 employees by Sept 2024 (different sources).

Year 2 • 2024

Web features: Image Weight / Style Reference / Character Reference rolled out (product expansions)

Midjourney added richer prompt controls: Image Weight, Style Reference and Character Reference features across 2023–2024 to control influence of images and preserve character consistency.

Year 2 • 2024

Operations scale metrics reported (jobs/sec & servers)

Industry reports estimated Midjourney completes roughly 20–40 jobs per second and runs on 10,000+ servers (public estimates from 2023–2024 data reporting).

Year 2 • 2024

Reported revenue estimate: $300M (2024 projection)

Several market trackers and reports projected Midjourney revenue around $300M for 2024 (company has not publicly filed audited financials).

Year 2 • 2024Valuation: $3,000,000,000

Retraction event: bogus Midjourney figures in academic paper

A Frontiers journal paper containing gibberish figures generated with Midjourney was retracted in early 2024 after the images went viral (Feb 2024 retraction reported).

Year 2 • 2024

Community size: 19.26M (March 2024)

Midjourney's Discord reported ~19.26M registered users by March 2024 in public tracking data.

Year 2 • 2024

Version 6.1 released

Midjourney published Version 6.1 release notes (July 31, 2024) with improvements and personalization features.

Year 2 • 2024

Company recognized by Stripe as most globally distributed business (2024)

Stripe recognized Midjourney as its most globally distributed business in 2024 (awarded/recognized by Stripe).

Year 2 • 2024

Web interface / web editor launched (move beyond Discord)

Midjourney launched its web interface and editor in August 2024, enabling image generation and an editor experience without Discord; synced with Discord conversations.

Year 2 • 2024

Community size: 20.9M (Sept 2024)

Discord community reported ~20.9M members by September 2024.

Year 2 • 2024

Selected Google Cloud to power platform (press)

Midjourney announced selection of Google Cloud to power its AI-generated creative platform (press release October 2024).

Year 2 • 2024

Patchwork multiplayer worldbuilding tool launched

Midjourney launched Patchwork (Dec 2024), an infinite-canvas worldbuilding tool allowing up to 100 users to edit a shared world collaboratively.

Year 2 • 2024

M&A offer reported (Apr 10, 2025 — tracker note)

Some company profile trackers listed an 'M&A Offer' entry on April 10, 2025; details (amount, acquirer) not disclosed in sources reviewed.

Year 3 • 2025

Major public controversies over realistic AI deepfakes (2023–2025)

Midjourney-produced images were central to multiple viral deepfakes (Pope Francis puffer coat, fake Trump arrest photos, Pentagon hoax) raising misinformation concerns across 2023–2024 and ongoing debate about moderation.

Year 3 • 2025

Reported revenue milestone: $500M (2025)

Some trackers (getlatka / company profiles) estimated Midjourney revenue reached $500M in 2025 (growth from earlier reported $200–300M figures).

Year 3 • 2025Valuation: $5,000,000,000

Version 7 (V7) alpha released

Midjourney announced V7 (alpha) on April 4, 2025 with improvements in hands, faces, details, and launched new workflow features including Personalization and Draft Mode.

Year 3 • 2025

Discord community reported ~21M members (May 2025)

Contrary / research profiles reported Midjourney's Discord server membership reached ~21 million by May 2025, making it one of Discord's largest servers.

Year 3 • 2025

Universal Pictures & Disney file copyright lawsuit (June 11, 2025)

Universal Pictures (Comcast) and The Walt Disney Company filed a copyright infringement suit against Midjourney alleging broad plagiarism (reported Jun 11, 2025).

Year 3 • 2025