At the end of March 2025, a website opens its doors. There you can make videos with artificial intelligence, in a few sentences.
Eighteen months later, its founder announces on X that his company is running at a rate of more than a billion dollars in revenue per year. Faster, he claims, than OpenAI or Anthropic managed.
This company is called Higgsfield. Its story is one of the most spectacular of the year. And one of the most contrasting.
What is Higgsfield?
Higgsfield does not make its own video models. It does something cleverer: it brings together the best models on the market in a single workshop, a bit like a cinema that screened films from every studio.
On top of that, it adds director's controls: a tracking shot, a zoom, a precise camera movement, chosen in one click. The whole thing is mainly used to produce adverts, videos for social media and short films.
The company was founded by Alex Mashrabov, former head of AI at Snapchat, and Yerzat Dulat. It claims more than 32 million users, including nearly a million paying customers. It is the first unicorn from Kazakhstan, the country of origin of its founders.
A dizzying rise
The figures are staggering. According to the company's announcements, its annual revenue run rate was around 20 million dollars in August 2025. It reached 200 million at the end of the year, 500 million in June, 700 million in August, and therefore more than a billion at the end of September.
Investors followed. Valued at 1.3 billion dollars in January, Higgsfield raised 400 million in August on the basis of a 5.4 billion valuation, with DST Global, Goldman Sachs and Intel among others.
This billion is not what Higgsfield took in over a year. The company takes what it earned during its last four weeks, and multiplies it by thirteen. It is a snapshot of its current pace, not a set of accounts. One very good month is enough to inflate the figure, one bad month to bring it back down. Many AI companies report this way, but you need to know that to read their announcements.
Why it works
Because it does not depend on any one model. When OpenAI closed developers' access to Sora on 24 September, as expected, those who were building on it had to go elsewhere. A workshop that offers every model does not have that problem.
Because advertising has found its tool. Revenue under contract with businesses has increased tenfold since June, according to the company. Its boss sums up the phenomenon like this: as soon as a brand sees that its AI-made adverts perform, it orders more and more of them. Incidentally, subscriptions, which made up more than 90% of revenue at the start, now account for only slightly more than 60%.
Because it moves fast. New features every week, a massive presence among content creators, and a company that says it is already cash-flow positive, when most of its competitors are still burning money.
The hidden side
That growth came at a price, and it is documented.
In February 2026, an investigation by Forbes magazine revealed that the promotional kits Higgsfield supplied to creators contained shocking videos, including deepfakes of public figures made without their consent, and that stock footage was presented as having been produced by the tool. Creators paid to promote the platform complained of content disappearing, earnings that were hard to withdraw and accounts banned without explanation. On 9 February, the company's X account was suspended. A message, since deleted, even boasted about having wiped out creative jobs.
On the customer side, the complaints concern "unlimited" plans that slow down sharply in practice, heavy users banned in late 2025 (the company says these were breaches of its content rules), credits that expire and a very strict refund policy. Complaints have been filed with US consumer protection bodies.
Higgsfield says it has since tightened up its creator programme with clearer rules. The product itself is widely considered effective. The problem is not what the tool can do, but the way it was sold.
What we take away
Higgsfield tells the story of the era well. A company can now reach colossal revenues in eighteen months without even building its own technology. It can also damage its reputation as fast as it grows.
The real question going forward is no longer whether it works. It is whether trust can catch up with growth. The numbers, for their part, will not wait for the answer. To gauge how far it has come, remember that in May, a 90-minute film made with Higgsfield reached Cannes.
Start with a monthly plan rather than an annual one. Read exactly what an "unlimited" plan covers. Use your credits before their expiry date. And check the terms of use to see what the platform is allowed to do with your creations. Discover Higgsfield.
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