Scale AI to raise hundreds of millions while Australia languishes Appen

https://siliconangle.com/2024/03/29...ere-reportedly-talks-raise-hundreds-millions/

AI startups Scale AI and Cohere reportedly in talks to raise hundreds of millions


BY MARIA DEUTSCHER
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Scale AI Inc. and Cohere Inc. are seeking to raise hundreds of millions of dollars from investors, according to two reports published on Thursday.
The startups join the growing list of artificial intelligence developers rumored to be in talks for mammoth funding rounds. Figure AI Inc., which develops AI-powered humanoid robots, is seeking $500 million, according to a Bloomberg report from January. Anthropic is said to be targeting $750 million, while OpenAI is expected to raise capital as well at a valuation that could top $100 billion.
On Thursday evening, The Information reported that Accel is in talks to lead a new funding round for Scale AI. The round is expected to be worth hundreds of millions of dollars. The publication’s sources added that the deal is set to boost Scale AI’s valuation by 80% to about $13 billion.
San Francisco-based Scale AI provides training data that OpenAI and other market players use to develop their models. The company’s flagship offering, the Scale Generative AI Data Engine, allows customers to specify what data they require and for what task through a visual interface. A team of human experts then assembles the requested files with the support of automated quality assurance systems.
Scale AI’s platform also offers other capabilities. According to the company, customers can use it to test the accuracy of their AI models’ output and identify potential cybersecurity issues. Additionally, it helps autonomous vehicle developers enhance the training datasets they use to build their driving software.
The company let go 20% of its workforce last January. At the time, it disclosed that it had experienced strong sales growth in 2021 and 2022 but the “macro environment has changed dramatically in recent quarters.” That it’s expected to raise funding at a $13 billion valuation, double what it was worth after its last raise, hints the company is once again seeing strong revenue growth.
The report about the potential investment emerged a few hours after Bloomberg revealed that Cohere is also seeking to raise capital. It’s believed the deal could close at a $5 billion valuation, more than double what the company was worth last year. Bloomberg’s sources said the AI developer is seeking to raise at least $500 million from investors, which lines up with earlier reports.
Cohere develops large language models for the enterprise market. The company’s newest LLM, Command R, debuted earlier this month. It understands 10 languages, can interact with third-party applications and is capable of ingesting prompts with up to 128,000 tokens.
A few weeks earlier, Cohere released the code for another new LLM called Aya. It understands 101 languages, more than double the number supported by earlier open-source models. Cohere open-sourced Aya together with the dataset it used to build the model, which contains more than 513 million AI prompts and answers.
Cohere previously raised more than $440 million in funding from Nvidia Corp., Oracle Corp., Salesforce Inc. and other institutional investors. The company’s most recent $270 million round closed last June at a $2.2 billion valuation.