Micro1 pushes AI training-data run rate from $100M to $500M in 8 months
Four-year-old Micro1 just quintupled its gross annual run rate, from $100M to $500M, in under eight months as labs and corporations race for scarce training data. The startup keeps roughly 60–70% of that, and much of its edge comes from selling the same "off-the-shelf" datasets to multiple buyers, pushing gross margins as high as 90%. One catch: founder Ali Ansari says Micro1 won't sell to Chinese model makers, an escalating fault line in the AI data business.