Midjourney at a glance
- Founded
- 2022[1]
- [1] Founded: Wikidata (retrieved September 16, 2026)
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Other metrics
Employees
~40 (among the highest revenue-per-employee ratios in software)
As of 2022EstimatedCompany profile
Company Snapshot
Midjourney is a AI infra company, based in San Francisco, California, USA, founded 2022. Total funding $0 (fully self-funded since 2021) (As of 2021).
Recent changes
- Jul 24, 2026Jul 24, 2026Midjourney Acquires Astrology App Co-Star, Plans New Apps Pulse story
- Jul 4, 2026Jul 4, 2026Midjourney Seeks to Force Hollywood Studios to Reveal Their AI Use Pulse story
- 20252025First reported arr: ~$500M (up from ~$300M in 2025, ~$200M in 2024)Estimated Company profile
- 20222022First reported headcount: ~40 (among the highest revenue-per-employee ratios in software)Estimated Company profile
- 20212021First reported total funding: $0 (fully self-funded since 2021) Company profile
Latest Pulse
- Oct 5, 2026Five Startups Stood Out At PearX Demo DayFive early-stage companies -- from an on-device AI inference chip to an AI-native trust company -- stood out to investors at Pear VC's latest PearX demo day, spanning robotics, personal AI, estate planning and industrial design.→
- Oct 2, 2026Sean Parker Rebuilds Stability AI Around MusicSean Parker, who helped engineer Stability AI's 2024 rescue, says the company is becoming a dedicated AI toolmaker for music professionals, shipping three new audio models since its label-backed $76 million raise in August.→
- Aug 28, 2026Music Labels Fund Stability AI's $76M Series BStability AI raised $76 million in a Series B backed by Universal Music Group, Warner Music Group, Sony Music Group and Electronic Arts -- the rights holders that spent three years suing generative AI companies now funding one.→
- Aug 26, 2026xAI Sued Over Grok's Deepfake Training DataA class-action lawsuit accuses xAI of training Grok on unfiltered data and failing to build adequate safeguards against sexualized deepfakes of minors, adding to legal-liability risk for AI image tools.→
- Aug 25, 2026Stability AI Raises $76M From Music, Gaming GiantsStable Diffusion maker Stability AI raised a $76 million Series B from Universal Music, Sony Music, Warner Music, Electronic Arts and AMD Ventures, bringing total funding to $232 million as it expands into creative production tools.→
- Aug 18, 2026Daniel Ek's Neko Health Opens First US Clinic in SoHoNeko Health will open its first American location on September 24 at 300 Lafayette Street in SoHo, with more than 25,000 New Yorkers already on the waitlist, a month after raising a $700 million Series C.→
- Aug 18, 2026MIT Finds AI Models Develop 'Amnesia' at ScaleMIT researchers found that as generative AI models grow larger, their outputs become nearly impossible to trace back to specific training examples -- a phenomenon they call attribution decay that complicates copyright and fair-use fights over AI-generated.→
- Aug 17, 2026Higgsfield Quadruples Valuation to $5.4B in 8 MonthsAI video and image startup Higgsfield raised a $400 million Series B at a $5.4 billion valuation, four times its mark from eight months ago, on $700 million in annualized revenue.→
- Aug 17, 2026Google Retires Imagen 4, Forces Devs Onto Gemini 3.1Google is retiring all three Imagen 4 model endpoints and requiring developers to migrate image generation to Gemini 3.1, a change that breaks existing integrations rather than a drop-in swap.→
- Aug 2, 2026Two AI Transparency Laws Go Live the Same DayCalifornia's AI Transparency Act and the EU AI Act's high-risk-system obligations become enforceable simultaneously, forcing frontier labs to prove content provenance instead of promising future compliance.→
Coverage Timeline
newest firstAll Coverage
FUNDING
Midjourney Acquires Astrology App Co-Star, Plans New Apps
AI image and video lab Midjourney acquired astrology app Co-Star, whose roughly two dozen employees have joined the company to help build Midjourney's first standalone consumer app.
Midjourney Seeks to Force Hollywood Studios to Reveal Their AI Use
AIDiscovery motion pending
Midjourney Seeks to Force Hollywood Studios to Reveal Their AI Use
Midjourney is asking a federal judge to force Disney, Universal and Warner Bros. Discovery to disclose their own internal AI use as part of its defense against the studios' copyright lawsuit.
Value Add Research
- AI & Technology · Jul 31, 2026Midjourney: $500M ARR, $12.5M Per Employee, $0 VC
- Startup Operations · Jul 21, 202625% Smaller Teams — Startup Hiring & AI (2026)
- AI & Technology · Jun 27, 2026AI Martech 2026: $200B Market, 14,000+ Tools
- Startup Operations · Jun 17, 2026AI-Native Hiring: $10M ARR with 10-Person Teams
- AI & Technology · May 1, 2026Best AI Tools for Startup Founders 2026: Top 10
Related Companies
Competitors
The VC Read
Midjourney is the single best counter-argument to the 'AI requires billions in venture capital' narrative in this whole sector — ~$500M ARR, ~40 employees, zero outside funding, and profitable almost from day one. That's not a fluke; it's a deliberate strategic choice by a founder who has watched the industry raise and burn tens of billions and decided he'd rather own 100% of a smaller, sustainable business than 20% of a unicorn. The risk is that staying lean and independent limits how fast Midjourney can respond if a well-capitalized rival (Google, OpenAI) decides to make image generation free as a distribution play — but so far, subscription revenue keeps compounding regardless.
How Midjourney makes money
Midjourney sells access to its AI image (and now video) generation models purely through subscriptions — four tiers running from $10 to $120 a month that meter GPU rendering time, with no free tier and no ad-supported option. Users generate images through a web app and (formerly) Discord, paying for compute-intensive 'fast' generation time.
The company added a 2025 licensing deal with Meta (reportedly for image/video model technology) as a secondary revenue stream, but subscriptions remain the core. Its radically lean headcount (~40 people) and refusal to take outside capital let it keep nearly all of that revenue as profit — the opposite strategy of most AI labs, which burn billions on compute and staff before turning a profit, if ever.
Competitors
- OpenAI (DALL-E / Sora) — Image and video generation bundled into ChatGPT.
- Stability AI (Stable Diffusion) — Open-weight image-generation rival.
- Google (Imagen / Veo) — Image and video models distributed via Google's consumer surfaces.
- Adobe Firefly — Enterprise-and-creative-workflow-integrated image generation.
Profile sources (verified 2026-08-02): Sacra — Midjourney revenue, funding & news · Value Add VC — How does Midjourney make money ($500M ARR, zero funding) · Skim AI — How Midjourney became a top AI image generator with no VC funding
Midjourney FAQ
What is Midjourney's revenue?
Midjourney's estimated annualized revenue is around $500 million in 2026, up from roughly $300 million in 2025 and $200 million in 2024 — generated almost entirely through subscription plans.
How does Midjourney make money?
Through four subscription tiers ($10-$120/month) that meter AI image/video generation time, with no free tier, plus a 2025 technology licensing deal with Meta as a secondary revenue source.
When was Midjourney founded?
Midjourney was founded in 2022, according to Wikidata.
Sources & methodologyshow
Where these figures come from
- Company profileunspecified source3 facts
Figures are labelled Reported (a source states it), Estimated, Derived (computed from other facts) or Rumored (in talks / unconfirmed). Rumors never replace a confirmed figure. Each figure keeps its own as-of date; history is preserved rather than overwritten.