Introduction
Artificial intelligence (AI) has become an integral part of our daily lives, and companies are scrambling to get ahead in the AI gold rush. Scale AI, a data-labeling services provider, has raised a massive $1 billion Series F round from big-name institutional and corporate investors, including Amazon and Meta. This fundraise is a mix of primary and secondary funding, and it’s the latest in a slew of big venture capital investments in AI.
The Fundraise
The $1 billion Series F round was led by Accel, which also led Scale AI’s Series A and participated in subsequent venture rounds. Aside from Amazon and Meta, Scale AI has attracted an assortment of new investors, including the venture arms of Cisco, Intel, AMD, and ServiceNow. Many of its existing investors also returned, including Nvidia, Coatue, Y Combinator, Index Ventures, Founders Fund, Tiger Global Management, Thrive Capital, Spark Capital, Greenoaks, Wellington Management, and former GitHub CEO, Nat Friedman.
The Growing Importance of Data
Data is the lifeblood of AI, which is why companies specializing in data management and processing are faring well right now. Just last week, Weka said it raised $140 million at a $1.6 billion post-money valuation to help companies build data pipelines for their AI applications.
Scale AI’s Mission
Founded in 2016, Scale AI meshes machine learning with ‘human-in-the-loop’ oversight to manage and annotate large volumes of data, which is vital for training AI systems across industries such as autonomous vehicles. However, most data is unstructured, and AI systems find it difficult to use such data off the bat. It needs to be labeled, which is a resource-intensive endeavor, especially with large datasets.
How Scale AI Works
Scale AI provides companies with data that has been correctly annotated and primed for training models. It specializes in different industries with different needs – a self-driving car company will likely need labeled data from cameras and lidar, whereas natural language processing (NLP) use cases will need annotated text.
The Company’s Customers
Scale AI’s customers include Microsoft, Toyota, GM, Meta, the U.S. Department of Defense, and, as of last August, ChatGPT-maker OpenAI, which is tapping Scale AI to let companies fine-tune its GPT-3.5 text-generating models.
The CEO’s Vision
Scale AI’s CEO and co-founder, Alexandr Wang, said in a press release, "Data abundance is not the default – it’s a choice. It requires bringing together the best minds in engineering, operations, and AI. Our vision is one of data abundance, where we have the means of production to continue scaling frontier technologies."
The Future of AI
As AI continues to advance, companies like Scale AI will play a crucial role in providing high-quality data for training AI models. With its latest fundraise, Scale AI is well-positioned to take on this challenge and help drive innovation in the industry.
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