Wirestock, a company known for helping photographers sell their work online, has shifted gears. Instead of just distributing stock photos, it now supplies datasets of images, videos, and 3D content to AI labs. This move comes as demand for creative data skyrockets in the AI industry.

From Stock Photography to AI Data Provider

Originally, Wirestock helped thousands of artists earn money by licensing their work. But in 2023, they pivoted to focus on providing data for artificial intelligence models. More than 700,000 artists and designers can now contribute content to support AI training. The company’s CEO, Mikayel Khachatryan, explained that they made this change transparent, giving artists the option to opt out of data supply programs.

While the company didn’t specify exactly how many artists transitioned to becoming data providers, Khachatryan indicated that the majority did. The platform now handles custom requests for content, creating new revenue streams for creators. As a result, Wirestock has grown rapidly, signing deals with some of the biggest foundation model developers in the AI space.

Funding and Growth in the AI Data Market

Recently, Wirestock announced it raised $23 million in Series A funding, led by Nava Ventures, with participation from other investors. This funding will help expand their data supply offerings and improve their technology, including tools for annotating and labeling data—an essential step for AI training.

Currently, the company has an annual revenue run-rate of around $40 million and has paid out $15 million to contributors. They are building enterprise software to help AI labs collaborate more effectively on datasets. The company employs about 60 people and plans to hire more in research, engineering, and product development.

Wirestock is focusing on multi-modal data, meaning content that combines different types of media—images, videos, and potentially audio or music. This is important because many AI models now aim to understand and generate various media types, making diverse datasets crucial for more human-like AI systems.

High Demand and Future Opportunities

The AI industry is experiencing a surge in demand for quality datasets. Companies like Surge, Scale AI, and Mercor have built billion-dollar businesses by providing different kinds of training data. New startups are also entering this space, working with top AI developers to supply specialized datasets.

Wirestock’s focus on creative content for AI models aimed at image, video, and 3D generation positions it well for future growth. The company believes that multi-modal data will become even more important, not just for creating content but for enabling AI to perform real-world tasks more effectively.

As AI continues to evolve rapidly, companies like Wirestock will play a key role in supplying the creative data needed to push the technology forward. With new funding and a growing team, the company is set to expand its offerings and deepen its impact on the AI ecosystem.

Inspired by

• https://techcrunch.com/2026/05/14/wirestock-raises-23m-to-supply-multi-modal-data-to-ai-labs/

Sources

• wirestock.io
• humanarchive.ai