Is Labelbox profitable in 2026?

No profitability figures are disclosed. Revenue estimates conflict, and Labelbox has not raised new capital since its $110M Series D in January 2022, a signal often associated with financial strain rather than confirmed profitability.

Could AI replace Labelbox?

Basic annotation work is being automated by model-assisted pre-labeling and AI-native tools like DeepEval and Arize Phoenix, but Labelbox's Alignerr network of 2.6M+ human expert contributors, as of 2026, targets RLHF judgment tasks that remain harder for AI to self-generate.

Who is Labelbox's biggest competitor?

Scale AI, now 49% owned by Meta as of 2025 after CEO Alexandr Wang departed, and Surge AI, reportedly valued around $25B in December 2025, both compete directly with Labelbox in the expert-human-judgment RLHF data market.

Labelbox is privately held and venture-backed, with investors including SoftBank Vision Fund 2, B Capital, Kleiner Perkins, a16z, and ARK Invest from its $110M Series D closed in January 2022. There has been no IPO or acquisition.

Is Labelbox involved in any lawsuits?

Yes. Labelbox, Inc. v. Gujarati et al., filed in N.D. Cal. (Case No. 3:25-cv-10159), accuses a former Head of Product and competitor V7 of trade-secret misappropriation; a motion to dismiss certain claims was granted March 2, 2026.

Has Labelbox raised funding recently?

No. Its last primary round was a $110M Series D in January 2022 at roughly a $1B valuation. A secondary-market tracker estimated an implied value near $0.2B as of June 30, 2026, about a 78% markdown.

AI companies and labs · United States

Labelbox

labelbox.com ↗

Human labeling and expert-review platform feeding AI labs' training data pipelines.

Protection under test

Assessed 21 July 2026 · Evidence as of 21 July 2026

Something worth protecting exists and is being tested right now.

On the recordSince 21 July 2026 · Checkable from March 2026 · Every call on the record Checkpoint: Preliminary injunction hearing in V7 trade-secret lawsuit

The call

Labelbox keeps real lab relationships but sits between richer rivals, a frozen valuation, and open litigation, with the outcome still unsettled.

Labelbox sells services to help AI labs like Meta and Google label images and text so their AI models learn correctly. The problem: bigger companies like Scale AI (now partly owned by Meta) and Surge AI do the same work, and large tech companies can build these services themselves instead of buying from Labelbox. The company has lost funding momentum over four years, its value dropped about 78 percent in private markets, and it brings in less revenue than it has raised in cash. One thing that could matter: if Labelbox lands a major new funding deal or breaks through with customers who stick with it instead of switching to Scale AI or Surge AI.

Why

AI pressure: Model-assisted pre-labeling and LLM-eval tools (Arize Phoenix, DeepEval). Automated pre-labeling and AI-native eval tools cut demand for manual annotation, hitting Labelbox's older CV labeling base. Could AI do the core job? Only partly.

Bigger players: Scale AI (49% Meta-owned) and Surge AI (~$25B valuation). Scale AI and Surge AI outspend Labelbox for the same frontier-lab RLHF and expert-judgment contracts. Could a giant copy it? Yes, easily.

What protects it. Live ties to Meta's GIM benchmark and Google Cloud, plus a 2.6M-person expert network, keep some lab relationships in place.

What would change this call

Whether Labelbox announces a new primary funding round in the next 6-12 months. Shows if investors still value it near its 2022 $1B mark or if the ~78% markdown holds.
Outcome of the V7 trade-secret lawsuit (N.D. Cal. 3:25-cv-10159), injunction hearing March 2026. A loss or damaging disclosure would signal legal and reputational weakness.
Whether Google, OpenAI, or Microsoft shift labeling spend to Labelbox, Surge, or in-house teams. Shows if Labelbox is winning or losing customers amid the Scale AI/Meta fallout.

Key numbers

No primary funding round since $110M Series D (2022-01)
Secondary valuation ~$0.2B, down ~78% from $1B peak (2026-06-30)
Revenue estimated $21M-$50M vs $189M raised total (2026-07)

Named risks

No primary funding round since January 2022 alongside a reported ~78% secondary valuation markdown. Severity: high
Structurally undefended market position versus Meta-backed Scale AI and $25B-valued Surge AI. Severity: high
Unresolved federal trade-secret litigation with V7 and a former employee, ongoing as of May 2026. Severity: medium
Weak employee sentiment, 2.9/5 Glassdoor rating and 36% CEO approval as of June 2026. Severity: medium
Widely conflicting third-party revenue and headcount estimates reduce visibility into actual traction. Severity: low

Rivals, as read in July 2026

Rival	Direction	Evidence
Scale AI	losing to	Meta took 49% stake in 2025; Scale scales faster on far greater capital than Labelbox
Surge AI	losing to	Reached roughly $25B valuation by December 2025 versus Labelbox's implied ~$0.2B secondary value
V7	contesting	Active federal trade-secret litigation ongoing through at least May 2026
Hyperscalers (AWS, Google, Meta in-house)	gaining on	Simultaneously customers and capable in-house builders of annotation/RLHF tooling

Questions people ask

Is Labelbox profitable in 2026?: No profitability figures are disclosed. Revenue estimates conflict, and Labelbox has not raised new capital since its $110M Series D in January 2022, a signal often associated with financial strain rather than confirmed profitability.
Could AI replace Labelbox?: Basic annotation work is being automated by model-assisted pre-labeling and AI-native tools like DeepEval and Arize Phoenix, but Labelbox's Alignerr network of 2.6M+ human expert contributors, as of 2026, targets RLHF judgment tasks that remain harder for AI to self-generate.
Who is Labelbox's biggest competitor?: Scale AI, now 49% owned by Meta as of 2025 after CEO Alexandr Wang departed, and Surge AI, reportedly valued around $25B in December 2025, both compete directly with Labelbox in the expert-human-judgment RLHF data market.
Who owns Labelbox?: Labelbox is privately held and venture-backed, with investors including SoftBank Vision Fund 2, B Capital, Kleiner Perkins, a16z, and ARK Invest from its $110M Series D closed in January 2022. There has been no IPO or acquisition.
Is Labelbox involved in any lawsuits?: Yes. Labelbox, Inc. v. Gujarati et al., filed in N.D. Cal. (Case No. 3:25-cv-10159), accuses a former Head of Product and competitor V7 of trade-secret misappropriation; a motion to dismiss certain claims was granted March 2, 2026.
Has Labelbox raised funding recently?: No. Its last primary round was a $110M Series D in January 2022 at roughly a $1B valuation. A secondary-market tracker estimated an implied value near $0.2B as of June 30, 2026, about a 78% markdown.

Timeline

2026-06-30Secondary-market tracker estimates Labelbox valuation near $0.2B, roughly 78% below 2022 mark
2026-05-21Docket shows ongoing discovery/stay stipulations in Labelbox v. Gujarati and V7 trade-secret case
2026-03-12Court ruled on preliminary injunction motion in Labelbox v. Gujarati litigation
2026-03-02Court granted V7's motion to dismiss certain state-law claims in trade-secret suit
2026-02Labelbox acquired Upcraft, an agentic sales automation startup, to scale Alignerr outreach
2025-12Surge AI reportedly reached roughly $25B valuation on RLHF positioning
2025Meta took 49% stake in Scale AI; CEO Alexandr Wang departed to Meta
2024-04Labelbox announced Google Cloud partnership for LLM evaluation
2022-01Labelbox closed $110M Series D led by SoftBank Vision Fund 2, near $1B valuation
2018Labelbox founded by Manu Sharma, Brian Rieger, and Daniel Rasmuson

Revision history

21 July 2026

First assessed. Protection under test. The text above is fixed as of this date and is not edited afterwards.

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