Wirestock's Data Goldmine: A Shift in the Creative Industry

A recent trend in the creative marketplaces and platforms has come to light, where companies are leveraging their data to develop AI models or licensing it to other AI labs. Wirestock, a platform that previously helped photographers distribute and sell their work on stock photography services, has taken the latter path.

From Stock Photography to Data Supply: Wirestock's Pivot

Wirestock shifted its focus to being a data provider in 2023, supplying datasets of images, videos, design assets, and gaming and 3D content to AI labs. The company has signed up more than 700,000 artists and designers who complete different tasks for data collection, similar to freelancers on platforms like Fiverr.

Mikayel Khachatryan, the company's co-founder and CEO, said Wirestock was transparent about its shift, and allowed artists to opt out of its data supply business. Khachatryan noted that "the majority" of artists did choose to continue providing data for AI labs.

• The startup has seen significant growth, with an annual run-rate revenue of $40 million and having paid out $15 million to its contributors.
• Wirestock currently provides multi-modal data to six of the largest foundation model makers, although the company declined to name them.
• As part of the transition, the startup had to retrain some of its teams to annotate and label data in detail to make it useful for AI labs.

Funding and Future Plans

Wirestock has raised $23 million in Series A funding to build out its new data supply business. The round was led by Nava Ventures, with participation from SBVP, Formula VC, and I2BF Ventures. The startup plans to use the funding to hire for research, engineering, and product roles, as well as build enterprise software for AI labs to collaborate on datasets.

Freddie Martignetti, founder of Nava Ventures, said his fund was looking for a startup that was innovating on data procurement and refinement. Martignetti believes Wirestock has a deep understanding of what foundational models and hyperscalers need in terms of multi-modal data to create more human-like systems.

The Rise of Data Supply Services

Demand for data supply services is high, with companies like Surge, Scale AI, and Mercor building businesses worth tens of billions seemingly overnight. Wirestock wants to focus on providing data for models that aid creative use cases, such as image and video generation. The company is also exploring other modalities like audio and music.