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UPDATED 2026.06.07
rl-list.com · Vendors · Scale AI

Scale AI

Incumbent
medium confidence
scale.com ↗ · Status: active (independent; Meta holds ~49% non-voting minority stake as of June 2025) confirmed · Founded 2016

Scale AI is the data-labeling and AI-data incumbent that has extended into RL environments, offering simulated web apps, macOS/Windows-like desktop VMs, and MCP-tool environments (Slack, HubSpot, Linear) with expert-designed objectives, rubrics, and automated verifiers to train and evaluate agents on long-horizon professional workflows. Following Meta's ~$14.3B June 2025 investment (~49% non-voting stake) and founder Alexandr Wang's departure to Meta, several frontier-lab customers (OpenAI, Google, xAI) reportedly scaled back or paused engagement over conflict-of-interest concerns.

Key facts
Headquarters
San Francisco, California, USAconfirmed cite
Headcount band
200+confirmed cite
Total raised
$1.6Breported cite
Last round
Meta strategic investment, ~$14.3B for ~49% non-voting stake, June 2025 (valuing Scale at ~$29B); prior Series F ~$1B in May 2024 at ~$13.8B valuationreported cite
SOC 2
Type IIconfirmed cite
What they sell
mixed (human data / data labeling, RL environments, model evaluations, AI infrastructure / applications)confirmed cite
Open source
noestimated cite
Deployment
managed-hosted (vendor-operated environments/infrastructure to run agent training and evaluation; simulated APIs, MCP servers, GUIs)reported cite

Scale & velocity

Current headcount
~1,000-1,200 (late 2025); reduced after July 2025 layoff of ~200 (14%) from a ~1,400 global FTE workforce, plus ~500 contractors cutreported cite
Headcount growth
~14% FTE reduction in July 2025 (~200 cut from ~1,400) plus ~500 contractors; interim CEO signaled intent to staff up enterprise and government sales units in H2 2025reported cite
Open roles
unknown
Other locations
St. Louis, Missouri, USA (opened 2022)reported cite
Distributed / remote
unknown

Research depth

Has researchers
yesreported cite
Researcher count
unknown
Backgrounds
unknown
Papers / benchmarks
Scale operates the SEAL (Safety, Evaluations and Alignment Lab) research group publishing model evaluations and public leaderboards (e.g., Humanity's Last Exam, SEAL leaderboards)reported cite

Capital

Total raised
~$1.6B in disclosed equity rounds prior to Meta; Meta's June 2025 ~$14.3B was a strategic stake purchase (largely secondary/cash to existing holders), not a conventional primary funding round, so combining them into a single ~$15.9B 'raised' figure overstates capital raisedreported cite
Last round
Meta strategic investment, ~$14.3B for ~49% non-voting stake, June 2025 (valuing Scale at ~$29B); prior Series F ~$1B in May 2024 at ~$13.8B valuationreported cite
Investors
Meta Platforms, Accel, Amazon, Nvidia, Founders Fund, Index Ventures, Tiger Global Management, Dragoneer Investment Group, Greenoaks, Y Combinatorreported cite
Valuation
~$29B (post Meta June 2025 investment)reported cite
Revenue signals
~$870M revenue in 2024 (reported); company guided to ~$2B revenue for 2025 (Bloomberg, Apr 2025), vendor/forward guidance, not auditedreported cite

Security & compliance

SOC 2
Type IIconfirmed cite
Other certifications
ISO/IEC 27001:2022, FedRAMP High Authorized, DoD IL4 Provisional Authorization (DISA)confirmed cite
Security page
https://scale.com/security (Trust Center: https://trust.scale.com/)confirmed cite

Product

What they sell
mixed (human data / data labeling, RL environments, model evaluations, AI infrastructure / applications)confirmed cite
Open source
noestimated cite
License
unknown
Deployment model
managed-hosted (vendor-operated environments/infrastructure to run agent training and evaluation; simulated APIs, MCP servers, GUIs)reported cite
Maturity
GA (RL Environments product publicly offered)reported cite
Notable customers
⚑OpenAI (former / winding down work after Meta deal) verified ⚑Google / Alphabet (former / cutting ties after Meta deal; reportedly Scale's largest customer) verified ⚑xAI (reportedly paused work after Meta deal; press-reported, not firmly confirmed) self-claimed Microsoft (press-reported customer; relationship reportedly affected post-deal, not firmly confirmed) self-claimed U.S. Department of Defense verified General Motors verified cite

Buyer analysis

Best fit: Enterprises and government buyers (and labs without a Meta conflict concern) wanting an established, security-certified vendor to supply expert-built, verifiable RL environments and human data for agent training across coding, computer-use, browser, and enterprise-tool workflows.

How we verified this

Confirmed this is the correct entity (the labeling incumbent Scale AI / scale.com, founded 2016 by Alexandr Wang and Lucy Guo) matching the note 'the labeling incumbent adapting.' Funding: Meta's ~$14.3B for ~49% non-voting stake at ~$29B valuation (June 2025) is multi-source confirmed; kept as 'reported' and flagged that combining it with prior ~$1.6B equity into a ~$15.9B 'raised' figure overstates capital raised (the Meta deal was largely a stake purchase). Layoffs (~14%/~200 FTE + ~500 contractors from ~1,400) confirmed via TechCrunch/CNBC/Bloomberg; headcount band 200+ upgraded to confirmed. Biggest corrections are on customers: Meta removed (now an investor/competitor, not a current customer); OpenAI and Google are credibly third-party reported to be winding down/cutting ties and relabeled accordingly; xAI and Microsoft set to self-claimed/press-reported. Certifications: SOC 2 Type II, ISO 27001:2022, FedRAMP High, and DoD IL4 verified on scale.com/security, but HIPAA is NOT on the current security page and was removed from the 'confirmed' list. Revenue: ~$870M 2024 reported; ~$2B for 2025 corrected to company forward guidance (Bloomberg), not audited. Overall confidence lowered from high to medium given customer churn and reliance on reported/guidance figures.

Related vendors

Mercor IncumbentSurge AI IncumbentTuring Incumbent

Sources

  1. scale.com/rlenvironments · 2026-06-07, RL Environments product page: web apps, desktop VMs, MCP servers (Slack/HubSpot/Linear), verifiable rewards, managed infra
  2. scale.com/blog/rl-environments · 2026-06-07, Blog: The Next Frontier of Data Training: RL Environments
  3. scale.com/about · 2026-06-07, Company about page; HQ San Francisco
  4. scale.com/security · 2026-06-07, SOC 2 Type II, ISO 27001:2022, FedRAMP High, DoD IL4; Trust Center trust.scale.com
  5. scale.com/blog/soc2-hipaa · 2026-06-07, SOC 2 Type II and HIPAA compliance announcement
  6. scale.com/blog/scale-ai-announces-next-phase-of-company-evolution · 2026-06-07, Meta investment, ~$29B valuation, Wang to Meta, Jason Droege interim CEO
  7. techcrunch.com/2025/06/13/scale-ai-confirms-significant-investment-from- · 2026-06-07, Meta ~$14.3B, ~49% stake, ~$29B valuation, Wang departure
  8. techcrunch.com/2025/09/21/silicon-valley-bets-big-on-environments-to-tra · 2026-06-07, Industry context on RL environments; Scale among vendors
  9. www.cnbc.com/2025/07/16/scale-ai-cuts-14percent-of-workforce-after-meta- · 2026-06-07, 14% layoff (~200 FTE) from ~1,400 workforce; OpenAI/Google/xAI scaling back
  10. techcrunch.com/2024/05/21/data-labeling-startup-scale-ai-raises-1b-as-va · 2026-06-07, Series F $1B May 2024 at $13.8B valuation
  11. news.crunchbase.com/ai/scale-holistic-raise-big-accel-nvda-amzn/ · 2026-06-07, Series F investors: Accel, Amazon, Nvidia, Meta etc.
  12. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scale_AI · 2026-06-07, Founded 2016 (Wang, Guo), HQ SF, ~$870M 2024 revenue, customers, investors, 2023 layoff
  13. www.linkedin.com/company/scaleai · 2026-06-07, Public LinkedIn company page (headcount band varies by source)
  14. fortune.com/2025/06/14/self-made-billionaire-college-dropout-alexandr-wa · 2026-06-07, Meta $14.3B deal context
Last updated 2026-06-07 · Every quantitative field carries a source and a confidence tag. Fields we could not source publicly are marked unknown, never estimated. See the methodology.