An MIT drop out has just had a $14bn valuation placed on his AI data start-up following its latest funding round.
Scale AI, which was founded in 2016 by then-19-year old Alexandr Wang, yesterday announced it has raised $1bn in Series F funding.
The move values it at $13.8bn, nearly double the $7.3bn it was valued at when it raised $325m in Series E funding in April 2021.
The move comes after Microsoft upped the AI ante earlier this week with the launch of the Copilot+ PC.
Self-made billionaire
Harbouring a mission of supplying one of the three fundamental pillars AI is built on, namely data (the other two being compute and algorithms), Wang founded Scale while studying AI at MIT.
At age 24, he became the youngest self-made billionaire in the world.
Now, the San Francisco-based outfit employs 900 staff, with expected annual recurring revenue of $1.4bn by the end of 2024, according to Fortune.
“Today, Scale supplies data to power nearly every leading AI model, serving organisations like OpenAI, Meta, Microsoft, and more,” Wang said.
Yesterday’s funding round included existing investors such as lead investor Accel, as well as new investors including Cisco Investments, Intel Capital, ServiceNow Ventures, AMD Ventures, Amazon and Meta.
“Our calling is to build the data foundry for AI, and with today’s funding, we’re moving into the next phase of that journey – accelerating the abundance of frontier data that will pave our road to AGI,” Wang said.
