Meta in talks to invest over $10B in Scale AI, one of Silicon Valley’s top AI startups

Meta is reportedly in discussions to invest more than $10 billion in Scale AI, the San Francisco-based data infrastructure startup that’s become a key player in the AI arms race, according to Bloomberg.

The terms haven’t been finalized and could still shift, sources told the outlet. Both companies have so far stayed quiet, and Meta didn’t respond to a request for comment, and Scale AI declined to say anything.

“Meta Platforms Inc. is in talks to make a multibillion-dollar investment into artificial intelligence startup Scale AI, according to people familiar with the matter,” Bloomberg reported.

“The financing could exceed $10 billion in value, some of the people said, making it one of the largest private company funding events of all time.”

A deal of this size would mark one of Meta’s biggest AI-related bets to date, and underscores how much big tech is willing to spend to stay ahead in the race for better training data and smarter models.

We covered Scale AI last year when the $13.8 billion unicorn was hit with a lawsuit accusing the company of widespread wage theft and worker misclassification. The lawsuit, filed by a former contractor, raised questions about how Scale handles its labor force, despite its high-profile backers and headline-grabbing valuation.

Founded in 2016 by CEO Alexandr Wang and Lucy Guo, Scale AI has cemented its reputation as a pivotal player in the AI landscape, focusing on the critical aspect of training data provision for AI applications. Wang’s entrepreneurial journey, which began at the age of 19 while he was a student at MIT, has propelled him to the ranks of the youngest self-made billionaires globally.

Since its inception eight years ago, Scale AI has grown to over 900 employees and surpassed the unicorn milestone, raising over $1.35 billion in funding to date. The company’s contractors have been involved in projects ranging from generative AI training to marking up images for self-driving car companies like Cruise and Waymo, helping vehicles better understand their environments.

Headquartered in San Francisco, Scale AI focuses on data labeling—an unglamorous but critical part of training large AI models. The startup has already attracted heavyweight backers like Nvidia, Amazon, and Meta itself, and was last valued at nearly $14 billion.

Beyond labeling, Scale AI also runs a platform that lets researchers share AI-related content. The company says its contributor base spans over 9,000 cities and towns.

Its flagship product, the Scale Generative AI Data Engine, enables customers to define their data requirements through a user-friendly interface. A combination of human expertise and automated quality assurance mechanisms ensures the delivery of high-quality data sets.