Scale AI
San Francisco AI company, founded in 2016, that provides training data, model evaluation and applied AI systems. Meta took a minority stake in June 2025 at a valuation Scale put above USD 29 billion.
Industry: AI training data and evaluation | Location: San Francisco, United States | Founded: 2016 | Total Funding: USD 15.9B
About Scale AI
Scale AI is a San Francisco company that supplies training data, model evaluation and applied AI systems to AI developers, enterprises and governments. Its website lists the Scale data engine, the Scale GenAI Portfolio and Scale Donovan as products, with solutions for enterprise, insurance, healthcare, national security and the public sector.
Scale was founded in 2016 by Alexandr Wang, who was in Y Combinator's Summer 2016 batch. Wang ran the company until June 2025, when he joined Meta and stayed on Scale's board as a director. Jason Droege, the chief strategy officer who joined in 2024, became interim chief executive. Scale's website now names Francis deSouza, a former Google Cloud chief operating officer, as chief executive, and links Axios and Bloomberg reports of his appointment dated 30 July 2026.
Scale's site names NVIDIA, Mayo Clinic, BP, Meta, Time, the Defense Innovation Unit and the Chief Digital and AI Office among its customers and partners. Its security page lists a SOC 2 Type 2 report, ISO/IEC 27001:2022 certification, a Department of Defense Impact Level 4 provisional authorization and FedRAMP High authorization.
Scale announced an 18 million dollar Series B led by Index Ventures in August 2018, a 100 million dollar Series C led by Founders Fund in August 2019, a 155 million dollar Series D led by Tiger Global in December 2020, and a 325 million dollar Series E in April 2021. In May 2024 it announced a 1 billion dollar Series F led by Accel at a 13.8 billion dollar valuation, with Amazon and Meta among the new investors.
In June 2025 Meta made a minority investment that Scale said valued it at more than 29 billion dollars. Reuters, citing sources, reported 14.3 billion dollars for a 49 percent stake, which CNBC said carries no voting power. Scale said it would distribute the proceeds to shareholders, and Droege told staff it was independent and not winding down. OpenAI told CNBC it had been reducing its work with Scale over the previous six to twelve months.
Leadership
- Francis deSouza, Chief Executive Officer
- Jason Droege, Interim Chief Executive Officer (from June 2025); Chief Strategy Officer
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