Scale AI

Quick read

Scale AI, AI data and infrastructure platform, founded 2016, headquartered in San Francisco, CA. Originally built on data annotation, it now spans RLHF, LLM evaluation, physical AI data, and enterprise software for model training and deployment. Meta took a major stake in June 2025 in a $14.3B deal, and the company's defense business is growing fast — the Pentagon contract alone reached $500M in May 2026.

Key facts

Founded

2016

Founders

Alexandr Wang

Employees

6547

Sectors

ai, enterprise

Website

scale.com

Mission

Scale AI's mission is to develop reliable AI systems for the world's most important decisions by providing high-quality training data, RLHF, LLM evaluation, and full-stack enterprise and government AI deployment infrastructure.

Recent activity

• Jul 2026leadership
  Scale AI's board appointed Francis deSouza as CEO, effective August 10, 2026. deSouza brings roughly three decades of enterprise technology and AI leadership. The appointment follows an interim period under Jason Droege after founder Alexandr Wang departed for a chief AI officer role at Meta in mid-2025. prnewswire.com
• Jun 2025investment
  Meta acquired a 49% non-voting stake in Scale AI for approximately $14 billion, valuing the company at over $29 billion. The deal included a five-year data contract worth at least $450 million annually. Alexandr Wang moved to Meta as chief AI officer following the transaction. webpronews.com
• Jan 2026press
  Interim CEO Jason Droege reported 2025 as Scale's strongest financial year, with over $1 billion in new bookings — nearly half landing in Q4. The company ended 2025 with its data business profitable and its enterprise applications segment adding customers including Mayo Clinic, BP, and Allianz. scale.com
• Jan 2026product
  Scale's U.S. Government business secured multi-million-dollar awards in Q3 2025, including two nine-figure contracts. Its international public sector team doubled revenue in 2025, expanding into Qatar, the UK, Riyadh, and Dubai. scale.com
• 2026product
  The Department of Defense's CDAO expanded its enterprise agreement with Scale AI, raising the contract ceiling from $100 million to $500 million, deepening Scale's role as AI infrastructure for the Pentagon. linkedin.com
• 2026product
  Scale AI and Scale Labs presented 7 accepted papers at ICML 2026 in Seoul, covering agent training, scientific reasoning, SWE-Bench Pro, and AI evaluation. The company hosted a reception at the conference. x.com
• 2026press
  CEO Jason Droege disclosed projected 2026 revenue exceeding $1 billion, with the internal AI applications segment already generating $200 million in annualized revenue. He expects that segment to overtake data labeling as Scale's largest revenue source within 18 months. kucoin.com
• 2026product
  Scale AI launched Defense Llama, an LLM built for U.S. national security in collaboration with Meta and defense experts, now available for integration into U.S. defense systems. linkedin.com
• May 2026investment
  The Pentagon awarded Scale AI a $500 million contract through the Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office to help analyze data and support military decision-making — a fivefold increase from the $100 million deal signed in September 2025. forbes.com
• May 2026press
  Scale AI projects over $1 billion in revenue for 2026. CEO Jason Droege cited the company's shift away from data labeling toward enterprise and government AI applications, a segment already generating $200 million in annualized revenue. phemex.com
• May 2026press
  Forbes profiled Scale AI's business one year after Meta acquired a 49% stake for $14 billion. The piece detailed Droege's strategy shift to enterprise clients including Ernst & Young, Paramount, and Cisco, and noted Google initially dropped Scale as a data labeling vendor after the Meta deal but resumed work months later. forbes.com
• May 2026press
  Scale AI turned 10 years old. CEO Jason Droege published a blog post reflecting on the company's trajectory from AI data infrastructure to enterprise and government AI systems. x.com

Key people

Named individuals at the firm. We don't expose direct email or phone — use their LinkedIn for outreach.

• Alexandr Wang · CEO & Founder
  Brief →
• Jason Droege · CEO
• Lucy Guo · Co-founder
• Vijay Karunamurthy · CTO

Sources

• Scale AI - Wikipedia
• Scale AI revenue, valuation & funding | Sacra
• Scale AI - 2026 Company Profile - Tracxn
• Scale AI Funding Rounds - Tracxn
• Scale AI | LinkedIn
• https://www.forbes.com/sites/aliciapark/2026/05/06/pentagon-hands-meta-backed-scale-ai-500-million-contract-5-times-last-years-deal-report-says/
• https://pitchbook.com/profiles/company/163154-17
• https://www.politico.com/newsletters/digital-future-daily/2026/04/24/5-questions-for-jason-droege-00890093
• https://www.linkedin.com/in/winnli/
• https://phemex.com/news/article/scale-ai-projects-over-1-billion-revenue-in-2026-amid-strategic-shift-82089
• https://www.forbes.com/sites/richardnieva/2026/05/14/scale-meta-deal/
• https://x.com/scale_AI?lang=en
• https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/scale-ai-appoints-francis-desouza-as-ceo-to-lead-next-phase-of-companys-growth-302838437.html
• https://www.webpronews.com/scale-ais-droege-2026-will-separate-ai-winners-from-hype/
• https://scale.com/blog/scales-next-era-building-for-2026
• https://www.linkedin.com/in/aakashsabharwal/
• https://x.com/ScaleAILabs
• https://www.kucoin.com/news/flash/scale-ai-revenue-expected-to-exceed-1-billion-in-2026-as-enterprise-ai-applications-grow
• https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexandrwang/

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