AI firms buy data of bankrupt startups to train their models
A new niche has emerged in the tech industry: digital archives of closed startups are being sold to artificial intelligence labs. Founders who once saw their data as worthless are now turning it into money.
As the number of startup closures rises, an unusual but lucrative niche has emerged in the technology industry: the digital archives of bankrupt companies are being sold to artificial intelligence (AI) laboratories, which use such data to train their models. This means the information a company accumulated can become a source of income once it shuts down.
Startup founders who previously regarded their data as worthless are now receiving substantial sums for it. One example given is the founder of a cryptocurrency startup, who received about 22,375 euros for the project's source code. A further amount of roughly 13,425 euros is also mentioned, but the available excerpt does not specify what it was paid for.
The source text is available only in part, so other terms of the deals, the names of buyers and the overall size of the market are not described here.