Meta has invested $15 billion into data-labeling startup Scale AI and hired its co-founder, Alexandr Wang, as part of its bid to attract talent from rivals in a fiercely competitive market.
The deal values Scale at $29 billion, double its valuation last year. Scale said it would “substantially expand” its commercial relationship with Meta “to accelerate deployment of Scale’s data solutions,” without giving further details. Scale helps companies improve their artificial intelligence models by providing labeled training data.
Scale will distribute proceeds from Meta’s investment to shareholders, and Meta will own 49 percent of Scale’s equity following the transaction.
Wang, who was also Scale’s chief executive, will “work on Meta’s AI efforts” in his new role. Meta, however, did not reveal his new job title.
Wang, 28, is set to remain on the board of directors at Scale, which has named Jason Droege as chief strategy officer. Droege helped launch Uber Eats as interim CEO and joined Scale in September.
“Meta’s investment recognizes Scale’s accomplishments to date and reaffirms that our path forward—like that of AI—is limitless,” Wang said. “I’m delighted that Jason will lead the next steps in Scale’s journey.”
Meta’s investment is the latest attempt by chief executive Mark Zuckerberg to give his $1.8 trillion social media company an edge in the race to develop more powerful AI models. Zuckerberg has been trying to poach top researchers and engineers from rival groups as he seeks to build out a new “superintelligence” team.
The deal is one of the biggest of its kind as tech companies increasingly strike agreements to invest in startups while acquiring their top staff. Last year, Microsoft paid $650 million to hire Inflection boss Mustafa Suleyman and his top lieutenants, and to license the startup’s technology. Google also paid $2.7 billion for a similar arrangement with Character.AI.