Overview

  • AfterQuery's valuation soared to $3.2 billion from $300 million in just five months, according to a report from Forbes citing insider sources.
  • Y Combinator partner Gustaf Alströmer stated this is the quickest ascent to unicorn status—defined as a private company valued at over $1 billion—in the accelerator's history.
  • The startup, founded by Spencer Mateega and Carlos Georgescu, compensates professionals to create expert judgment data that AI labs can no longer gather from the internet.

AfterQuery, an AI startup founded just 18 months ago, has achieved a remarkable valuation of $3.2 billion in a recent funding round, as reported by Forbes on Monday. This represents a dramatic increase from its previous valuation of $300 million just five months prior, following a $30 million Series A funding round aimed at facilitating growth.

This rapid increase positions AfterQuery as the fastest startup in Y Combinator's history to reach unicorn status, according to Gustaf Alströmer. While the company chose not to comment on the report, one of the sources cited by Forbes indicated that AfterQuery is already profitable and has secured a lead investor for this funding round.

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AfterQuery is rapidly bridging the gap with the
“giants.”

We’ve already surpassed the $100M revenue run rate mentioned here.

If you’re a post-training researcher or lab in need of long-horizon tasks, professional/knowledge work data, high-fidelity RL environments, or code… https://t.co/KM7kINFfN4

— Spencer Mateega (@spencermateega) July 12, 2026

AI data economy by partnering with data infrastructure company Poseidon, incentivizing users to collect real-world data that models cannot access online.Scale AI's Alexandr Wang became the first billionaire in the data-labeling sector at 24, and Meta acquired a 49% stake in Scale AI for $14.3 billion, placing Wang at the helm of its AI lab. Additionally, the founders of rival Mercor surpassed Wang's early record last October, becoming billionaires at just 22 years old.

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