SuperAnnotate, founded in 2018 by Armenian brothers Vahan and Tigran Petrosyan, has raised $36 million in a Series B funding round, reports Zartonk Media.
The funding round was led by high-profile backers Socium Ventures, a VC fund backed by Cox Enterprises, with participation from NVIDIA, Databricks Ventures, Lionel Messi’s Play Time Ventures, Glynn Capital, and several existing investors. SuperAnnotate is positioned for continued growth as it plays a critical role in shaping the future of enterprise AI data management. The company’s goal is to scale its presence as a global player while continuing to serve its existing clients in sectors like finance, healthcare, and autonomous vehicles.
SuperAnnotate is a leading provider of enterprise software for managing and creating large-scale multimodal AI datasets. Its platform allows companies to create, manage, and refine datasets used to train AI models, accelerating the development lifecycle for large language models (LLMs), generative AI (GenAI) systems, and other AI applications. The platform’s capabilities include tools for labeling, organizing, and evaluating data, offering a comprehensive suite of low-code workflows, collaboration tools, and performance dashboards. Companies can also tap into SuperAnnotate’s marketplace of crowd-sourced annotators to ensure high-quality, human-verified results.
SuperAnnotate’s solutions have attracted a growing roster of high-profile clients, including Canva, Databricks, and Motorola Solutions. Trusted by several Fortune 50 companies, the platform empowers organizations to create complex AI models using the highest quality multimodal datasets.
“The new capital will accelerate our growth and further establish our role as a key player in enterprise GenAI dataset creation, management, and orchestration. Trusted by several Fortune 50 companies, our platform enables organizations to create complex AI models using the highest quality multimodal datasets,” said Vahan Petrosyan, co-founder and CEO.
The funds will be used to expand SuperAnnotate’s team of 100 employees, increase research and development, and grow its customer base of over 100 companies worldwide. The company’s goal is to scale its presence as a global player in AI dataset management while continuing to serve its existing clients in sectors like finance, healthcare, and autonomous vehicles. This fresh capital brings SuperAnnotate’s total raised to just over $53 million.
Backstory and Mission
SuperAnnotate’s origins trace back to Vahan Petrosyan’s PhD research on image segmentation, where he identified a critical need for better data management tools for AI development. Recognizing the potential for broader industry application, he partnered with his brother Tigran Petrosyan to launch SuperAnnotate in 2018. Their goal was to build an intuitive, low-code platform to simplify AI dataset creation and management for companies of all sizes.
What began as a tool to streamline pixel-precise annotations for computer vision has now evolved into a full-fledged multimodal AI dataset management platform. SuperAnnotate’s platform empowers companies to handle image, text, and audio datasets, enabling them to train more versatile and accurate large language models (LLMs), retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) systems, and AI agents.
“As generative AI evolves, so does the demand for better, smarter enterprise data solutions. Today’s funding boosts our capacity to enhance our multimodal data offerings”the building block for enterprises to build intelligent AI systems. The future of AI starts with the right data, and SuperAnnotate is here to be the data partner you can count on,” added Vahan.
Solving Industry-Wide Challenges
The rise of generative AI in 2023 exposed critical challenges related to data quality and dataset availability. As large-scale foundation models like ChatGPT became more widespread, companies began to realize that the real competitive edge lay in having access to custom, high-quality datasets. SuperAnnotate addresses this gap by offering tools that convert raw data from data lakes and warehouses into high-quality, training-ready data. This process, often called creating SuperData, is a vital step for enterprises looking to train domain-specific AI models.
Vahan highlighted this growing demand, stating: “As AI evolves, so does the need for high-quality datasets, and our platform is built to meet this demand. Our goal is to create a Swiss Army Knife for AI training data that can fully adapt to enterprises’ evolving needs.”
SuperAnnotate’s platform offers unique features, including low-code workflows, collaboration tools, and performance dashboards that allow users to track the performance of models trained on their datasets. Companies can also tap into SuperAnnotate’s marketplace of crowd-sourced annotators to speed up dataset labeling and ensure high-quality, human-verified results.
A Global Impact for Armenian Tech
SuperAnnotate’s $36 million Series B funding is a landmark moment for the Armenian tech sector, and a testament to the growing role of Armenian-founded companies in the global AI and technology space. The Petrosyan brothers’ journey from PhD research to venture-backed success showcases the spirit of Armenian innovation and the growing influence of Armenia’s private sector in high-tech industries.
With support from major backers like NVIDIA, Databricks Ventures, and Lionel Messi’s Play Time Ventures, SuperAnnotate’s rise signals an exciting future for Armenian tech entrepreneurship. It positions Armenia as a growing force in the global tech world, proving that Armenian-led companies can compete on a global stage.
Congratulations to Vahan and Tigran Petrosyan and the entire SuperAnnotate team on this incredible achievement!
