Updated October 2026
The AI data market, dated
Funding, acquisitions, company-data deals, incidents and program changes. Every entry is dated and sourced, and incidents stay on the record.
- Report
Labs are buying data from startups that shut down[1]
MIT Technology Review reports AI labs buying the archives of failed startups to train models.
- Deal
micro1 commits $1B to buying company data[2]
micro1 set aside $1B over 12 months to license operating data from companies.
- Program
micro1 updates its referral terms[3]
The terms set a default referral payout of 7.5% of the license price paid to the company.
- Funding
micro1 raises $100M+ at a $4B valuation[4]
Forbes reports the round.
- Funding
Snorkel AI raises $350M at a $3.5B valuation[5]
SiliconANGLE also reports a $375M run rate.
- Report
micro1 reaches a $500M gross run rate[6]
TechCrunch reports growth from $100M in eight months, with net revenue at $150M-$200M.
- Deal
Google outbids Mercor for Spirit Airlines' archive[7]
Google's $10M bid beat Mercor's $7.5M. A court hearing on the sale is set for 6 Nov 2026.
- Acquisition
Mercor buys Deeptune[8]
The deal adds training environments for AI agents.
- Report
Mercor passes a $2B gross run rate[9]
Dealroom, citing The Information, reports the June 2026 figure.
- Program
micro1 launches its company-data referral program[10]
It opened at up to $25K per referral with a $5M fund. The ceiling has since doubled to $50K.
- Report
SimpleClosure passes 150 startup data deals[11]
Forbes reports deals typically worth $10K-$100K each for the archives of wound-down startups.
- Funding
Handshake's ARR crosses $1B[12]
Dealroom, citing The Information, puts total gross ARR at about $1.15B, with AI training near $1B.
- Incident
Class actions filed against Mercor[13]
Several suits were filed in the Northern District of California after the breach.
- Incident
Mercor confirms a cyberattack[14]
The incident was tied to the compromise of the open-source LiteLLM project.
- Acquisition
Mercor acquires Sepal AI[15]
Announced by Mercor's counsel, Orrick.
- Acquisition
Cloudflare acquires Human Native[16]
The AI data marketplace joins Cloudflare.
- Funding
Mercor raises $350M at a $10B valuation[17]
TechCrunch reports the Series C.
- Deal
Meta takes 49% of Scale AI[18]
The deal was reported at $14.3B to $15B. Founder Alexandr Wang joined Meta.
Sources (18)
The monthly AI data brief