In recent years, creative platforms have realized they can monetize their vast databases by developing AI models or licensing them. Wirestock, a company that previously helped photographers sell their work on services like Shutterstock, has chosen this path. The startup, which pivoted to become a data provider in 2023, now supplies AI labs with collections of images, videos, design assets, and 3D content. This is reported by Techcrunch.com reports .
The Wirestock platform unites over 700,000 artists and designers who perform various data collection tasks. Founder and CEO Mikayel Khachatryan emphasized that he was transparent about this shift and allowed creators to opt out of providing their data. According to him, while the company initially sold existing data from its library, moving to custom content creation based on specific orders fueled the platform's rapid growth.
The company announced it has raised $23 million in a Series A funding round. Led by Nava Ventures, the round included investors such as SBVP, Formula VC, and I2BF Ventures. Currently, Wirestock partners with six of the world's largest foundation model developers. The company's annual revenue stands at $40 million, and it has paid out $15 million to creators to date.
As AI labs continue to improve their models, the demand for high-quality data is surging. Companies like Surge, Scale AI, and Mercor have managed to build multi-billion dollar businesses in this sector. Wirestock is also striving to solidify its position in this competitive market by retraining its team in data annotation and labeling.
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