AfterQuery becomes Y Combinator's fastest unicorn with $3.2B valuation
AI training-data startup AfterQuery has raised a round at a $3.2 billion valuation, just five months after its Series A. Y Combinator partner Gustaf Alströmer says it's the fastest startup to reach unicorn status in the accelerator's history.
AfterQuery, a San Francisco-based startup focused on AI training data, has raised a new funding round that values the company at $3.2 billion. According to Forbes, which first reported the news, the round comes just five months after the company announced a $30 million Series A at a $300 million valuation in April. That represents more than a tenfold increase in value in under half a year.
Gustaf Alströmer, a partner at Y Combinator, said the startup has become the fastest company ever to reach unicorn status in the accelerator's history. The founders, aged 22 and 23, were part of Y Combinator's Winter 2025 cohort, which took place just 18 months ago.
In April, AfterQuery said it had reached an annualized revenue run rate of $100 million and was working with several major AI labs. The company has named Nvidia, Legora, and Korean AI lab Motif Technologies as customers.
AfterQuery is part of a new wave of startups, alongside Mercor and Scale, that employ knowledge professionals such as doctors, lawyers, and other specialists to help train AI models. However, instead of focusing on making models answer questions correctly, AfterQuery trains models and agents to complete tasks the way professionals would. The company describes this as 'encoding the patterns, decisions, and reasoning of the world's best practitioners.'
AfterQuery could not be immediately reached for comment.
