Scale AI valued at US$14 billion in Nvidia, Amazon-backed funding round
The San Francisco, California-based company’s funding round is the latest in a series of AI megadeals
SCALE AI said on Tuesday (May 21) it had raised US$1 billion in a late-stage funding round led by venture capital firm Accel with participation from tech giants Nvidia, Amazon, and Meta, valuing the AI data startup at nearly US$14 billion.
Top tech companies are racing to build AI into their products and services. Startups catering to the surge in demand for AI chips and machine learning have been a bright spot in an otherwise subdued private funding market.
Founded in 2016, Scale AI provides vast amounts of accurately labelled data, which is pivotal for training sophisticated tools like OpenAI’s ChatGPT.
The company also helps its clientele – including tech giant Microsoft, Wall Street bank Morgan Stanley, and AI firms such as OpenAI and Cohere – to create and refine data sets.
The San Francisco, California-based company’s funding round is the latest in a series of AI megadeals.
AI startups raised US$19.15 billion in venture capital funding in the first quarter, compared with US$16.36 billion in the year-ago period, according to data from PitchBook.
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Scale AI said it will use the capital to build data capabilities with its enterprise customers, the US Department of Defence, and work on the White House-announced DEFCON 31 red-teaming event.
Red-teaming is a way of interactively testing AI models to protect against harmful behaviour, including leaks of sensitive data and generated content that’s toxic, biased, or factually inaccurate.
The White House has been forging partnerships with AI-focused companies and has launched several initiatives for safe AI innovation.
Other high-profile investors who participated in the latest round of funding for Scale included Coatue, Tiger Global Management, Intel Capital, and AMD Ventures.
In 2021, it had raised US$325 million in a series E funding round that reportedly valued it at about US$7.3 billion. REUTERS
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