AfterQuery, a startup developing data and services for training artificial intelligence models, has made a major leap in its valuation in a short period; the company was valued at approximately $3.2 billion in a funding round reported by the press, just five months after a $30 million Series A round at a valuation of $300 million.
According to TechCrunch, Forbes first reported the news, while AfterQuery was unable to provide an immediate comment. The new valuation represents an increase of more than tenfold compared with its April valuation, although the article did not disclose the size of the latest round or the investors who participated in it.
The Fastest Unicorn in Y Combinator’s History
Gustaf Alströmer, a partner at Y Combinator, said AfterQuery is the fastest among the accelerator’s startups to move from launch to a valuation of $1 billion or more. The company’s founders, now 22 and 23 years old, were part of Y Combinator’s Winter 2025 batch approximately 18 months ago, according to the information in the report.
In April, AfterQuery said it had reached an annualized revenue run rate of $100 million and was working with some of the largest artificial intelligence laboratories. The company named Nvidia, Legora, and the Korean artificial intelligence lab Motif Technologies among its customers.
Training Models to Perform Professional Work
AfterQuery operates within a wave of companies that use human experts, such as doctors, lawyers, and other specialists, to help train models. But its focus differs from merely training models to provide correct answers; it works to teach models and agents how to carry out tasks in the way professionals do.
The company describes this approach as “encoding the patterns, decisions, and reasoning styles of the world’s best practitioners.” This places it in a category of companies that includes Mercor and Scale, although the ultimate use of the experts and the data produced by each company differs.
Why Does This Matter?
The leap in AfterQuery’s valuation highlights the level of interest in model-training services that go beyond improving general information to target transferring specialized work methods to artificial intelligence systems and agents. If the reported revenue and customer figures are accurate, the company is not relying solely on an early funding story but is showing signs of commercial demand from laboratories and technology companies.
However, the valuation alone does not establish the sustainability of this growth or the size or terms of the new round. Most of the financial and investment details in the article are attributed to external reports, and AfterQuery did not provide a direct statement to confirm them. Therefore, the speed at which it reached a value of $3.2 billion remains notable news, not a definitive judgment on the company’s long-term performance.