AfterQuery hits $3.2B valuation, becoming Y Combinator's fastest unicorn
AI training-data startup AfterQuery has reportedly raised a round at a $3.2 billion valuation, only five months after its Series A — making it the fastest unicorn in Y Combinator history.
According to Forbes, AfterQuery, a startup focused on AI training data, has completed a new funding round that values the company at $3.2 billion. 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 under six months.
Gustaf Alströmer, a partner at Y Combinator, said AfterQuery is the fastest startup to go from launch to unicorn status in the accelerator's history. The founders are currently 22 and 23 years old. They joined Y Combinator's Winter 2025 cohort just 18 months ago.
In April, the San Francisco-based company said it had reached an annualized revenue run rate of $100 million and was working with many of the largest labs. It named Nvidia, Legora, and South Korean AI lab Motif Technologies as customers.
AfterQuery is part of a new wave of startups that, like Mercor and Scale, hire knowledgeable professionals — doctors, lawyers, and other specialists — to help train models. But instead of focusing only on improving answer accuracy, AfterQuery trains models and agents to act like professionals when completing tasks. The company describes this as "encoding the patterns, decisions, and reasoning of the world’s best practitioners."
Forbes was the first to report on the round. AfterQuery could not be immediately reached for comment.
