⚖️ Scale AI valued at $14 Billion

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Excited to have you join us: We’re Chris & Nolan (@chrisnolansf), and welcome to SF Whisper - a newsletter covering the most interesting business and local news of San Francisco.

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Scale AI Rides the Billion-Dollar Wave

Billion-Dollar Boost:

Scale AI has just catapulted its valuation to $14 billion, thanks to a cool $1 billion in fresh funding. Before this round, Scale AI had raised around $600 million in its eight-year history, including a $325 million Series E in 2021 that valued it at around $7 billion. Leading the Series F funding round were longstanding supporters like Accel, alongside a mix of old and new heavy-hitters including Amazon, Meta, ServiceNow Ventures, Intel Capital, and AMD Ventures.

Data Dynamics:

At the heart of Scale AI's rapid growth is its robust service that assists companies in labeling and testing data critical for training AI models. This is especially crucial as 90% of the company's business now thrives on generative AI applications, showing a clear pivot in corporate tech strategies towards these advanced tools.

Future Forward:

CEO Alexandr Wang is optimistic about the future, projecting an annual recurring revenue of $1.4 billion by the end of 2024, up from a tripled revenue in 2023. Scale AI also aims for profitability by year's end.

Read more

Anthropic hires Krishna Rao as CFO | Ex-Fanatics Ex-Blackstone Ex-Airbnb Ex-Bain

From Advisory to Hands-on Operator:

Krishna comes from a rich background starting his career at Bain as a consultant then moving on to Blackstone to serve as a Principal in their main PE group where he served as a board member & observer of Crocs, Inc (NASDAQ:CROX) and others. He then moved in-house to Airbnb in 2015 where he played a key leadership role in the IPO and raised billions of dollars in both equity and debt financings. He then moved on to Cedar after their $200M series D as CFO to ensure strong growth throughout the later stages. Lastly, he was the CFO of Fanatics’ Commerce division, a large driver of the overall group Fanatics, Inc. (a highly anticipated IPO for 2024)

Embarking on a Fun, but Monumental Challenge:

He joins amidst intensifying competition in the AI space. Anthropic is the creator of AI chatbot Claude, and with the hiring of Krishna, it seems they’re aiming to fortify their financial strategy to contend with other industry giants like OpenAI and Google. Rao’s appointment underscores Anthropic’s ambition to scale revenue - a huge undertaking given capital commitments of over $7Bn over the past twelve months. His role will be pivotal in steering the Company towards sustainable growth through the formidable challenges of managing their cost structure and driving sales growth.

Anthropic’s announcement

Catch up on the latest:

• Speed enforcement cameras in SF & how they’ll work (Link)

• Berkeley to start charging restaurants to operate sidewalk seating (Link)

Today’s whisper:

<sup>No plans for Memorial Weekend? We got you covered.

The Park Market at Crane Cove is back starting this Saturday 5/25/24!

Local food & drinks, activities like FREE paddleboarding & yoga classes, and a “Merchant Marketplace” (read: curated haven of small businesses and makers)</sup>

^{See you all there!} 🙂