Wirestock Raises $23M to Provide Creative Multimodal Data to AI Labs
In the past few years, creative marketplaces have recognized a significant opportunity: they possess a wealth of data that can either be used to develop artificial intelligence (AI) models or licensed to other AI labs for profit. Wirestock, which previously helped photographers sell their work through services like Shutterstock, has chosen to capitalize on this by becoming a data provider.
Launched as a data supplier in 2023, Wirestock now offers datasets of images, videos, design assets, and gaming and 3D content to AI labs. The company has signed up more than 700,000 artists and designers who contribute by completing various tasks for data collection, similar to how freelancers operate on platforms like Fiverr.
Co-founder and CEO Mikayel Khachatryan explained that initially, Wirestock focused on selling existing content libraries. However, the platform soon received numerous custom requests from AI labs seeking specific types of data. This shift led to new opportunities for creators, prompting the company’s rapid growth.
“Initially, we were just selling what we had off the shelf,” said Khachatryan. “But then it turned into a lot of custom requests for content and data—new opportunities for creators that really took us forward.” The startup has now raised $23 million in Series A funding to expand its data supply business.
- Key Partners: Wirestock currently collaborates with six of the largest foundation model makers, though they declined to name these specific partners.
- Retail Revenue: The company operates on an annual run-rate revenue of $40 million and has already paid out $15 million in wages to its contributors.
- Expansion Efforts: To support this growth, Wirestock had to retrain some teams for detailed data annotation and labeling. Additionally, it built sales and enterprise teams to engage with hyperscalers like AI model makers and find ways to gather more creative assets in areas such as 3D modeling.
The demand for data supply services is unprecedented, especially as AI labs strive to enhance their models. Companies like Surge, Scale AI, and Mercor have rapidly grown into billion-dollar enterprises by leveraging datasets, including startups like Micro1 and Human Archive that are working with top AI model makers.
Wirestock aims to provide data for creative use cases such as image and video generation. The company is also exploring other modalities like audio and music. Freddie Martignetti, founder of Nava Ventures, highlighted the startup’s expertise in understanding what foundational models and hyperscalers need from multimodal data.
The funding round has brought Wirestock’s total capital raised to approximately $26 million. The company plans to use this investment to hire for research, engineering, and product roles while developing enterprise software for AI labs to collaborate on datasets.
Key Takeaways
- Wirestock has raised $23M in Series A funding to expand its data supply business.
- The company currently partners with six of the largest foundation model makers, though they did not name these specific partners.
- To support growth, Wirestock had to retrain teams for detailed data annotation and labeling and build sales and enterprise teams to engage with hyperscalers like AI model makers.
Originally published at techcrunch.com. Curated by AI Maestro.
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