Snorkel AI raises $350M at $3.5B valuation as ARR jumps 18x to $375M
创业邦 · wechat · 2026-09-27
AI data company Snorkel AI closed a $350M Series E at a $3.5B valuation, led by Insight Partners and S32, just 17 months after its $100M Series D at $1.3B.
- Steeper revenue curve: ARR grew from $20M a year ago to $375M (18x), with profitability expected this year.
- Origins: Born from Stanford AI Lab's "data programming" research (writing labeling rules instead of hand-labeling), spun out in 2019 with the SnorkelFlow product.
- Pivot to Data-as-a-Service: A network of tens of thousands of experts defines tasks and scoring rubrics while AI models handle large-scale data generation and QC — single coding-agent tasks can invoke hundreds of specialized models for cross-checking, improving QC efficiency 50%+. The company now ships finished training data, evals, and reinforcement learning environments.
- Competitive landscape: Distinct routes vs. Scale AI (Meta's $14.3B for 49%, $29B valuation) on scale and Mercor on expert networks; Chinese players split between traditional data services and Physical AI data capture.
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