Amazon, Meta back Scale AI in $1 billion funding deal that values firm at $14 billion

Artificial intelligence startup Scale AI said Tuesday that it has raised $1 billion in a Series F funding round that values the enterprise tech company at $13.8 billion — almost double its last reported valuation. The San Francisco-based company, ranked No. 12 on this year’s CNBC Disruptor 50 list, has now raised $1.6 billion to date.

Its latest funding round is being led by Accel, and includes Cisco Investments, DFJ Growth, Intel Capital, ServiceNow Ventures, AMD Ventures, WCM, Amazon, Elad Gil (co-founder of Color Genomics and serial tech investor), and Meta, all of which are new investors in the company.

Existing investors including Y Combinator, Nat Friedman, Index Ventures, Founders Fund, Coatue, Thrive Capital, Spark Capital, Nvidia, Tiger Global Management, Greenoaks, and Wellington Management also participated in the round.

Scale AI is playing a key role in the rise of generative artificial intelligence and large language models, with the data — whether it is text, images, video or voice recordings — needing to be labeled correctly before it can be digested and used effectively by AI technology. Scale AI has evolved from labeling data used to train models that powered autonomous driving to now helping to improve and fine tune the underlying data for nearly any organization looking to implement AI, powering some of the most advanced models in use.

“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,” founder and CEO Alexandr Wang said in a statement announcing the news.

Scale AI is also increasingly working with the public sector.

In August, the company was awarded a contract with the Department of Defense Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office, which the company said will help boost the DoD’s efforts to advance AI capabilities for the entire military, spanning projects across the Army, Marine Corps, Navy, Air Force, Space Force and Coast Guard.

In May, Scale AI launched Donovan, an AI-powered decision-making platform that is the first LLM deployed to a U.S. government classified network.

Wang spoke at December’s AI Insight Forum in Washington, D.C., about the role Scale AI is playing in helping support the U.S. and its allies.

“The race for AI global leadership is well underway, and our nation’s ability to efficiently adopt and implement AI will define the future of warfare,” he said. “I firmly believe that the United States has the ability to lead the world in AI adoption to support U.S. national security. The world is not slowing down, and we must rise to the occasion.”

The company is also looking to play a role in AI development globally. It announced in May that it will open a London office as its European headquarters and will look to support and partner with the U.K. government on its AI initiatives.