Sama Raises $70M Series B to Build a More Accurate, More Ethical, End-to-End AI Development Pipeline

Sama has raised $70M of Series B funding to build the first end-to-end AI platform that enables teams to manage the complete AI lifecycle from start to finish. We’re partnering with some of the world’s top venture capital firms: our round is led by Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec (CDPQ), a global investment group, with participation from First Ascent Ventures and Vistara Growth, in addition to all existing investors. Read more here.

At Sama, we’re shaping a future of AI that’s more accurate, fair, and ethical. Since Day 1, we’ve been committed to building technology that has a positive impact — across industries, but also across the globe.

This is no small task, and we’ve been busy since announcing our Series A funding in 2019. We have opened offices in Kampala, Uganda, and Montreal, and Samasource became Sama. We were honored to win the 2020 AI Breakthrough Award for Best Image Processing Solution and this year were included in lists such as Forbes AI 50, Inc. 5000 Fastest-Growing Private Companies, 2021 AITechAward in Machine Learning Platforms category, and Fast Company’s World Changing Ideas.

Sama became one of the first AI companies to receive B Corp Certification and was recognized on the Best for the World™ 2021 list for BLabs Workers category. Our training and employment programs continue to help individuals lift themselves out of poverty — 56,000 individuals to date — with our 3-year Randomized Control Trial by MIT validating our long-term impact on employment rates and earnings.

Up to now, we’ve annotated over 1B image points on our platform (an average of 1M tasks completed per month) for industry-leading companies by the likes of Google, Walmart, and NVIDIA. And we did all this while achieving up to 99.9% data accuracy for our clients, versus an industry average of 94%.

What’s next?

Working with these exceptional clients for over a decade has highlighted an enormous area of opportunity, both for the future of Sama and for the AI industry as a whole. Enterprise AI teams have adopted a growing number of niche tools to support their end-to-end AI development cycle, and a lot of time (and accuracy) is lost building the infrastructure and pipeline required to integrate it all.At Sama, we believe there’s an opportunity to bridge this gap, and to do so responsibly.

Today, I’m thrilled to share that we’ve raised $70M of Series B funding to build the first end-to-end AI platform that enables teams to manage the complete AI lifecycle from start to finish. To achieve this, we’re partnering with some of the world’s top venture capital firms: our round is led by CDPQ with participation from First Ascent Ventures and Vistara Capital Partners, in addition to all existing investors.

With this funding and the support of our investors and community, we’re more committed than ever to building AI that delivers a positive impact: both for our clients who rely on us for high-quality data for their models, and for the lives of the professionals at the core of ethical AI supply chains.I want to thank all our investors for their trust in our mission, and for their commitment to changing the world for good. Thank you to our clients for entrusting us with delivering the high-quality data you need to fuel innovation. And an immense thanks to the Sama team and community for years of hard work, heart, and dedication.

‍Thank you — each and every one of you — for being part of this journey with us. We wouldn’t be where we are today without you. Let’s continue to shape a future of AI that’s more accurate and fair, together.Wendy