Snorkel AI Raises $350 Million at $3.5 Billion Valuation as Revenue Jumps 18 Fold
Snorkel AI raises $350 million at a $3.5 billion valuation as its annualized revenue run rate jumps 18-fold to $375 million on AI data demand.
Summary
On September 22, 2026, seven-year-old Snorkel AI raised a $350 million Series E led by Insight Partners and S32, with Addition, Lightspeed, Greylock, GV and Wells Fargo participating. The $3.5 billion valuation is nearly triple the $1.3 billion secured with a $100 million Series D 17 months earlier. Snorkel says its annualized revenue run rate reached $375 million, an 18-fold increase in 12 months driven by AI labs seeking high-end training data.
Snorkel shifted last year from data-labeling automation software to data as a service, supplying corporations and AI labs with completed datasets and reinforcement learning environments. Its hybrid approach combines synthetic data generated by software and models with subject matter experts, whose payments are recorded as cost of goods sold. Mercor has reached $2 billion in gross annualized revenue, Handshake $1 billion and Micro1 $500 million, although such companies pay specialists roughly 60% to 70% of top-line income, leaving substantially lower net revenue. Co-founder and CEO Alex Ratner and his team commercially launched Snorkel in 2019 after four years of Stanford AI lab research.
Positives
- Snorkel AI raised $350 million at a $3.5 billion valuation, nearly triple its valuation 17 months earlier.
- Annualized revenue run rate reached $375 million after increasing 18-fold over 12 months.
- Insight Partners and S32 led the round, while Addition, Lightspeed, Greylock, GV and Wells Fargo participated.
- Snorkel now delivers completed datasets and reinforcement learning environments rather than only data-labeling automation software.
- Mercor, Handshake and Micro1 have reached gross annualized revenue figures of $2 billion, $1 billion and $500 million, respectively.
Risks & concerns
- Specialist payments consume roughly 60% to 70% of top-line income at human expert-focused data companies.
- Snorkel records expert payments as cost of goods sold, making its headline revenue metric structurally different from labor marketplaces.
- The disclosed figures do not provide Snorkel AI's profitability or net annual revenue, limiting assessment of its underlying economics.