Stability AI chief executive officer Emad Mostaque has resigned from the British artificial intelligence startup, the company said, a move that follows quarrels with investors and waves of senior staff departures. 

Chief operating officer Shan Shan Wong and chief technology officer Christian Laforte will serve as interim co-CEOs, the startup said in a blog post. 

Stability, founded in 2019, is best known for Stable Diffusion, a popular image generation tool that helped kick off tech’s current AI frenzy. The company had also expanded into generative AI features for text and video. An early hit with investors, Stability was valued at US$1 billion in 2022.

More recently, Bloomberg reported that Stability had explored selling the company as investors pressured management over its financial position. The company had presented itself as an acquisition target in the fall, and held early-stage deal conversations with multiple companies, according to people familiar with the matter. Stability also saw significant high-level turnover in the last year. BLOOMBERG