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§ Private Profile · Calle Princesa, Number 22, 28008 Madrid, Spain
Open-source platform for data labeling, curation, and evaluation for NLP and LLMs, enabling high-quality datasets for AI models.
Based in Madrid, Spain, Argilla develops an open-source data curation and annotation platform designed to help enterprise teams build and evaluate natural language processing models. The software supports human-in-the-loop workflows and reinforcement learning from human feedback, reaching an operational scale of over six million total software downloads globally. Prior to its strategic acquisition, the global enterprise software provider secured $1.6 million in seed funding from venture capital investors including Zetta Venture Partners. Its collaborative data labeling tools have been utilized by large corporate customers such as GSK and BASF to improve their machine learning training efficiency. In May 2024, the prominent artificial intelligence company Hugging Face acquired the business for $10 million to integrate its advanced model evaluation capabilities. The organization was originally founded in 2016 by co-founders Daniel Vila Suero and Francisco Aranda Montes.
Argilla has raised $8.0M across 2 funding rounds.
Argilla has raised $8.0M in total across 2 funding rounds.
Argilla has raised $8.0M across 2 funding rounds. Most recently, it raised $6.0M Seed in November 2023.
| Date | Round | Lead Investors | Other Investors | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nov 1, 2023 | $6M Seed | — | Creandum, Earlybird Venture Capital, Felix Capital, Scale Asia Ventures, SMOK Ventures, Y Combinator, Bartek Pucek, Chris Murphy, Christian Bach, Heini Zachariassen, Mathias Biilmann Christensen | Announced |
| Jan 1, 2023 | $2M Seed | Caixa Capital Risc, Zetta Venture Partners | — | Announced |
Argilla has raised $8.0M in total across 2 funding rounds.
Argilla's investors include Creandum, Earlybird Venture Capital, Felix Capital, Scale Asia Ventures, SMOK Ventures, Y Combinator, Bartek Pucek, Chris Murphy, Christian Bach, Heini Zachariassen, Mathias Biilmann Christensen, Caixa Capital.
Argilla is an open-source, AI-driven platform that enables collaboration between AI engineers and domain experts to create high-quality datasets for natural language processing (NLP).[1][2][4] It automates data management tasks, supports active learning, fine-tuning, and evaluation of language models, while integrating seamlessly into existing NLP workflows, serving AI engineers, data scientists, NLP researchers, and domain experts in sectors like healthcare, IT, media, and financial services.[1][2][4] The platform has raised over $5M in funding, including a $1.6M seed round in 2023, and boasts thousands of users and community members globally, with strong growth through its open-source model launched in 2021.[1][2]
Argilla originated as Recognai, an NLP consultancy founded in 2017 in Madrid, Spain, by CEO Daniel Vila Suero and CTO Francisco Aranda.[2][3] The company bootstrapped its platform through client projects, addressing pain points in traditional data annotation, which is expensive and time-consuming for NLP model training.[2][3] It rebranded to Argilla in October 2022, drawing from the Latin word for "clay" to symbolize shaping high-quality data inputs—like prompts, training examples, or user feedback—for AI models, shifting from the "data is the new oil" metaphor.[2] Early traction came from open-sourcing the platform in 2021, leading to adoption by dozens of companies and a vibrant community.[2]
Argilla rides the wave of data-centric AI and the NLP boom, where model quality hinges on superior training data amid advances in large language models (LLMs).[2][4] Its timing aligns with surging demand for efficient human-in-the-loop tools for fine-tuning, RLHF, and evaluation, countering limitations of model-centric approaches in a post-ChatGPT era.[1][2][4] Market forces like rising MLOps needs, open-source momentum, and sector-specific NLP applications (e.g., healthcare, finance) favor it, while its Madrid base taps European deeptech funding.[2] Argilla influences the ecosystem by democratizing high-quality dataset creation, fostering community-driven innovation, and enabling scalable AI adoption across global teams.[1][2][4]
Argilla is poised to expand as a go-to MLOps tool, potentially launching cloud services to monetize its open-source base while scaling enterprise adoption.[2] Trends like multimodal AI, stricter data regulations, and RLHF proliferation for customized LLMs will amplify its relevance, with community growth driving feature velocity.[1][4] Its influence may evolve from niche NLP consultancy to a broader AI data platform leader, shaping robust, human-augmented models—proving that in AI, data quality truly makes or breaks success, just as its "clay" metaphor promises.[2][4]