Cloudflare acquires Human Native to build transparent marketplace for AI training data

Cloudflare buys Human Native to strengthen licensed data access for AI developers - SiliconANGLE

Cloudflare buys Human Native to strengthen licensed data access for AI developers Cloud connectivity provider Cloudflare Inc. today announced that it had acquired Human Native Ltd., an artificial intelligence data marketplace startup that connects creators and AI developers, for an undisclosed price. Founded in 2024, Human Native was built with the idea that creative and expert content shouldn't be used without consent in large-scale AI training and inference tasks. The company operates an AI data marketplace that connects publishers, creators and rights holders with companies building and training AI systems. The platform helps content owners prepare and price their data for AI use by giving them a structured way to offer content that is legally licensed, searchable and ready for AI developers to incorporate. Core to Human Native's approach is helping rights holders transform messy, unstructured content into usable, AI-ready data. The help includes indexing, cleaning, normalizing and structuring text, audio, video and other media so that it's easier for AI teams to work with and also easier to evaluate and price. Human Native's marketplace serves as a hub of licensed, high-quality content that can be acquired without the legal uncertainty of scraping or negotiating bespoke deals for every dataset. Using the marketplace, AI developers can choose from a catalogue of content that meets their technical needs and licensing requirements in a way that is transparent and compliant, while also reducing risks around copyright and intellectual property. The acquisition of Human Native fits in nicely with a push from Cloudflare last year that included a tool that allows website operators to charge AI developers to access their content. Cloudflare's commitment to creators is core to the deal. "Content creators deserve full control over their work, whether they want to write for humans or optimize for AI," said Matthew Prince, co-founder and chief executive officer of Cloudflare. "Last year we gave publishers and creators the tools to control which bots can access their content, but the real goal has always been to help create a new economic model that actually works for the next phase of the internet," added Prince. "The Human Native team will help us accelerate the next phase, where we build the tools that allow content to be discovered, priced and purchased through transparent channels. This acquisition is about building the tools needed to protect the longevity of the open internet." Coming into its acquisition, Human Native had raised $3.56 million over two rounds, according to data from Tracxn. Investors in the company included LocalGlobe Management Ltd. and Mercuri Inc. "We believe that creators should have control, compensation and credit when their work is used to power AI products, ensuring equitable compensation for rights holders while enabling responsible AI development," said Dr. James Smith, co-founder and CEO of Human Native. "Our discussions with Cloudflare, from Matthew to the entire team, have shown us that our values could not be more aligned, we believe in the same mission and together we will have the opportunity to deliver solutions at internet scale."

Cloudflare Acquires Human Native to Help Creators Monetise Content for AI Models | AIM

Cloudflare plans to build tools that allow content to be discovered, priced, and purchased by AI developers through transparent channels. Cloudflare has acquired Human Native, an AI data marketplace that connects content creators with AI developers, as the company steps up its push to build a paid, transparent content economy for the AI era. Financial details of the deal were not disclosed. The acquisition is aimed at making it easier for AI companies to discover, access, and pay for high quality content for training and inference, while allowing creators and publishers to price and monetise their data in a structured way. Cloudflare said the move will help transform original content into AI-ready data and enable a new business model for the internet. With Human Native's team and technology, Cloudflare plans to build tools that allow content to be indexed, discovered, priced, and purchased by AI developers through transparent channels. The company said this would give content owners flexibility to block AI access, optimise content for AI use, or sell data at a fair price. "Content creators deserve full control over their work, whether they want to write for humans or optimise for AI," Matthew Prince, co-founder and CEO of Cloudflare said. "The Human Native team will help us accelerate the next phase, where we build the tools that allow content to be discovered, priced, and purchased through transparent channels. This acquisition is about building the tools needed to protect the longevity of the open Internet." Founded in 2024, Human Native focuses on creating a more equitable relationship between AI companies and content creators. It is backed by UK venture firms LocalGlobe and Mercuri, and its team includes veterans from DeepMind, Google, Figma and Bloomberg. "We started Human Native with the goal of getting generative AI out of its Napster era. We believe that creators should have control, compensation and credit when their work is used to power AI products, ensuring equitable compensation for rights holders while enabling responsible AI development," James Smith, co-founder and CEO of Human Native said. Investors said the acquisition validates the need for infrastructure that enables ethical and paid access to data. "High quality data is the key that unlocks real differentiation in AI," Ziv Reichert, partner at LocalGlobe said, adding that Human Native had built systems that allow AI teams to access valuable data while enabling owners to surface, price, and monetise it. Mercuri founding general partner Alan Hudson said the firm's belief in rewarding creators for their data has only strengthened as AI adoption has accelerated, calling the partnership with Cloudflare a chance to scale that vision across the internet.