Wirestock raises $23 million to provide multimedia creative data to AI labs

In the past few years, creative marketplaces and platforms have realized that they are sitting on a data goldmine, and they can either use that data to develop AI models or turn it into a revenue stream by licensing it to other AI labs.

Wirestock, which previously helped photographers distribute and sell their work on photography services like Shutterstock, has taken the latter route.

The company pivoted to being a data provider in 2023 and now provides datasets of images, videos, design assets, games, and 3D content to AI labs. Wirestock said its platform has registered more than 700,000 artists and designers completing various data-gathering tasks, similar to freelancers on platforms like Fiverr.

Mikael Khachatryan, co-founder and CEO of the company, said Wirestock has been transparent about its transformation and has allowed artists to opt out of data sourcing work (in 2022, the platform had more than 100,000 photographers on its platform). Khachatryan did not specify how many people had become data providers for artificial intelligence, saying only that “the majority” had done so.

“At first, a lot of our deals were just selling what we had on the shelf, like our existing library,” he said. “But then it turned into a lot of custom requests for content and data, which created new opportunities for creators, and the platform just took off.”

The startup said Thursday it has raised $23 million in Series A funding to build a new data supply business. The round was led by Nava Ventures and saw participation from SBVP (co-founded by Sheryl Sandberg), Formula VC, and I2BF Ventures.

Khachatryan says Wirestock currently provides multimedia data to six of the largest foundation modellers, but he did not name them. He noted that the company currently has annual revenues of $40 million and has so far paid $15 million to shareholders.

As part of the transition, the startup had to retrain some of its teams to annotate and classify data in detail to make it useful for AI labs. She also had to build sales teams and organizations to be able to pitch her ideas to hyperscalers and find ways to source more creative assets in areas like 3D modeling.

Wirestock currently uses email marketing and referral programs to bring in new contributors. Photographers, videographers and illustrators can apply to provide data on its website, but they must complete an unpaid assignment as a quality check before they are accepted. The company said it uses a combination of artificial intelligence and human reviews to evaluate all businesses on the platform.

Demand for data provisioning services is extremely high right now as AI labs race to further improve their models. Companies like Surge, Scale AI, and Mercor have built businesses worth tens of billions seemingly overnight on the back of demand for different types of datasets, and a list of new startups like Micro1, Human Archive, and Human Native AI are working with major AI modellers as well.

Wirestock wants to focus on providing data to models that help with creative use cases, such as image and video creation. The company is also exploring other methods such as audio and music.

Freddie Martinetti, founder of Nava Ventures, said his fund was looking for a startup that was innovating in data procurement and optimization even before it learned about Wirestock.

“I think Wirestock has a deep understanding of what basic and hyperscale models need in terms of multimodal data to start creating more human-like systems. The cornerstone of our thesis was that multimodal data will be increasingly important, not only for creating images or videos, but also for models to complete real-world tasks,” Martinetti told TechCrunch.

Wirestock currently employs 60 people and will use the new funding to staff research, engineering and product roles. It is also building enterprise software for AI labs to collaborate on datasets.

The funding round brings the startup’s total capital to approximately $26 million.