Jeff Bezos Leads $72 Million Investment in AI Data Company Toloka

Amazon's Bezos leads new investment in AI data company Toloka

LONDON, May 7 (Reuters) - Jeff Bezos' personal firm Bezos Expeditions is leading a $72-million investment in artificial intelligence data solutions company Toloka, which is looking to scale up its business, Toloka told Reuters on Wednesday. Toloka, which helps train and evaluate AI models using a network of human experts and testers, is part of Nasdaq-listed AI infrastructure firm Nebius Group (NBIS.O), opens new tab and has worked with Amazon, Microsoft and Anthropic. Amsterdam-based Nebius emerged from a $5.4 billion deal, finalised last year, that split the domestic and international assets of Russian internet giant Yandex in the largest corporate exit from Russia since Moscow's 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Toloka founder and CEO Olga Megorskaya said the Bezos-led strategic investment was a milestone that should accelerate the company's growth, particularly in the U.S. market, and support its development of products through human experts collaborating with AI agents. "There will always be the need for control, verification, and help from human experts to ensure that the result is actually of high quality," Megorskaya told Reuters. Before finalising the split from Yandex, Nebius would have struggled to secure external investment from the likes of Amazon founder Bezos due to sanctions prohibiting U.S. investments in Russia. Chip giant Nvidia (NVDA.O), opens new tab was among the investors in a $700 million private placement raised by Nebius late last year. In addition to Bezos Expeditions, Mikhail Parakhin, CTO of Canadian e-commerce company Shopify, is participating in the investment, Nebius said, and will join Toloka's new board of directors as executive chairman. Parakhin said he was excited to be joining Toloka at a time when the demand for world-class AI data expertise is more urgent than ever. Bezos Expeditions did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Nebius said it would continue to support Toloka as a shareholder, retaining a significant majority economic stake, but relinquishing majority voting control. "The important thing about this round is that we gained the needed flexibility to operate independently," Megorskaya said. She said Toloka anticipated another investment round in the future. Reporting by Alexander Marrow; Editing by Joe Bavier Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles., opens new tab Suggested Topics:Artificial Intelligence Alexander Marrow Thomson Reuters Chief companies correspondent for Russia, Alexander covers Russia's economy, markets and the country's financial, retail and technology sectors, with a particular focus on the Western corporate exodus from Russia and the domestic players eyeing opportunities as the dust settles. Before joining Reuters, Alexander worked on Sky Sports News' coverage of the 2016 Olympics in Brazil and the 2018 World Cup in Russia.

AI data provider Toloka raises $72M in funding - SiliconANGLE

Toloka AI BV, a Dutch provider of datasets for artificial intelligence projects, today announced that it closed a $72 million investment. The round was led by Bezos Expeditions, a fund affiliated with former Amazon.com Inc. Chief Executive Officer Jeff Bezos. Shopify Inc. Chief Technology Officer Mikhail Parakhin participated as well. Toloka is a unit of Nasdaq-listed AI infrastructure provider Nebius Group NV. The latter company, which is based in the Netherlands, was originally the parent organization of Russian search engine Yandex. Nebius was suspended from the Nasdaq in 2023, offloaded its Russian holdings the following year and subsequently resumed trading on the stock exchange. Today, the company's main focus is operating a public cloud optimized for AI workloads. Nebius raised $700 million from Nvidia Corp., Accel and other backers in December to enhance the infrastructure that powers the platform. It plans to build a new data center in New Jersey and expand several existing facilities. Following today's investment, Nebius will no longer have majority voting control of Toloka and won't include the latter company's earnings in its quarterly results. It will retain a "significant majority economic stake." Amsterdam-based Toloka provides custom datasets that AI companies can use to train their models. It relies on a network of more than 200,000 annotators and other professionals to create those datasets. According to Toloka, the experts in its network can create AI training materials in more than 40 languages. After training a neural network, companies often apply optimizations to better align its output with user preferences. A retailer, for example, may prefer that each AI-generated shopping recommendation mention at least two products from its catalog. The process of aligning an AI model with user requirements involves supplying it with additional training data. Toloka says that its platform makes it easier for developers to source the necessary training data. It supports RLHF and DPO, the two most widely-used methods of aligning AI model output with user preferences. In RLHF projects, developers fine-tune an AI model's output using a second neural network trained to understand user preferences. DPO, in contrast, doesn't rely on a second neural network, which often makes the method more cost-efficient. Training AI programming assistants is another task that Toloka promises to ease. The company can provide code samples in more than a dozen programming languages. Users can customize details such as the number of code files in a training dataset, the tasks those files perform and the development frameworks they use. Before releasing an AI model to production, developers test that it's safe using a method known as red-teaming. They supply the model with a large number of prompts that mimic malicious input and evaluate how it responds. According to Toloka, AI teams can source such prompts through its platform to speed up red-teaming initiatives. The company's platform is used by Anthropic PBC, well-funded coding assistant startup Poolside and other major players in the AI market. Toloka stated that today's investment will facilitate the "significant and rapid scaling" of its business.

Amazon's Bezos leads new investment in AI data company Toloka

Jeff Bezos' firm led a $72 million investment in AI data solutions company Toloka, aiming to accelerate its US expansion and product development. Toloka, part of Nebius Group, supports AI model training with human input and gains operational independence through this strategic funding round.Jeff Bezos' personal firm Bezos Expeditions is leading a $72-million investment in artificial intelligence data solutions company Toloka, which is looking to scale up its business, Toloka told Reuters on Wednesday. Toloka, which helps train and evaluate AI models using a network of human experts and testers, is part of Nasdaq-listed AI infrastructure firm Nebius Group and has worked with Amazon, Microsoft and Anthropic. Amsterdam-based Nebius emerged from a $5.4 billion deal, finalised last year, that split the domestic and international assets of Russian internet giant Yandex in the largest corporate exit from Russia since Moscow's 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Toloka founder and CEO Olga Megorskaya said the Bezos-led strategic investment was a milestone that should accelerate the company's growth, particularly in the U.S. market, and support its development of products through human experts collaborating with AI agents. "There will always be the need for control, verification, and help from human experts to ensure that the result is actually of high quality," Megorskaya told Reuters. Before finalising the split from Yandex, Nebius would have struggled to secure external investment from the likes of Amazon founder Bezos due to sanctions prohibiting U.S. investments in Russia. Chip giant Nvidia was among the investors in a $700 million private placement raised by Nebius late last year. In addition to Bezos Expeditions, Mikhail Parakhin, CTO of Canadian e-commerce company Shopify, is participating in the investment, Nebius said, and will join Toloka's new board of directors as executive chairman. Parakhin said he was excited to be joining Toloka at a time when the demand for world-class AI data expertise is more urgent than ever. Bezos Expeditions did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Nebius said it would continue to support Toloka as a shareholder, retaining a significant majority economic stake, but relinquishing majority voting control. "The important thing about this round is that we gained the needed flexibility to operate independently," Megorskaya said. She said Toloka anticipated another investment round in the future.

Bezos Expedition Leads $72 Million Investment in AI Data Firm Toloka | PYMNTS.com

Jeff Bezos' Bezos Expeditions is reportedly leading a $72-million investment in AI firm Toloka. Toloka Founder and CEO Olga Megorskaya told Reuters in an interview Wednesday (May 7) that the investment was a milestone that should speed the company's growth, particularly in the American market, and bolster its development of products through human experts collaborating with artificial intelligence (AI) agents. "There will always be the need for control, verification, and help from human experts to ensure that the result is actually of high quality," Megorskaya said. According to the report, Toloka helps train and evaluate AI models using a group of human experts and testers. The company is part of Dutch AI infrastructure company Nebius Group and has worked with Amazon, Microsoft and Anthropic. As Reuters noted, Nebius emerged from a $5.4 billion deal, finalized in 2024, that split the domestic and international assets of Russian internet giant Yandex. Before that split, the report added, Nebius would have had trouble getting any sort of funding from the likes of Bezos because of sanctions blocking American investments in Russian firms. Reuters added that Nebius will continue to support Toloka as a shareholder, holding a substantial majority economic stake, but giving up majority voting control. "The important thing about this round is that we gained the needed flexibility to operate independently," Megorskaya said, adding the company expects to eventually conduct another investment round. In other AI news, PYMNTS CEO Karen Webster wrote about the potential of AI-powered shopping agents to become "invisible sales conversion engines" ... with their "strength as a conversational interface," capable of grasping complex requests, makes them well-suited to carry out purchases without users needing to enter a physical or digital store or leave the conversation. This rising agentic AI commerce ecosystem is poised to help merchants advance their ambitions. Card networks, payment processors, FinTechs and AdTech startups employ tokenized credentials and established payment infrastructure to turn the traditional browse-select-purchase journey into a natural conversation that can close a sale. "Existing technology foundations and massive infusions of capital fuel this momentum," she added. "The enthusiasm across the payments and commerce ecosystem to support a new way of matching consumers and merchants creates mutually reinforcing tailwinds."

Bezos Expeditions leads $72M investment in AI firm Toloka - Reuters By Investing.com

Bezos Expeditions, the personal investment company of Jeff Bezos, led a $72 million funding round for Toloka, an artificial intelligence data solutions provider, according to Reuters. Toloka is aiming to expand its operations and has announced this strategic move as a significant milestone for the company's growth, especially in the U.S. market. Toloka, part of the Nasdaq-listed Nebius Group, specializes in training and evaluating AI models with the assistance of a network of human experts and testers. The company has previously collaborated with major tech entities such as Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN), Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT), and Anthropic. Toloka's CEO, Olga Megorskaya, expressed that the investment spearheaded by Bezos would accelerate the company's growth and aid in the development of new products that integrate human expertise with AI technology. Nebius Group, based in Amsterdam, was formed following a $5.4 billion transaction last year that separated the domestic and international assets of Russian internet giant Yandex (NASDAQ:NBIS). This marked the largest corporate departure from Russia since the country's invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Prior to this separation, Nebius would have faced challenges in attracting investments from U.S. entities like Bezos Expeditions due to sanctions that prevent American investments in Russia. In a notable development, Mikhail Parakhin, Chief Technology Officer of Shopify (NASDAQ:SHOP), is also participating in Toloka's investment round. Parakhin will take on the role of executive chairman on Toloka's newly formed board of directors. He shared his enthusiasm for joining the company at a critical time when the need for AI data expertise is at an all-time high.

Amazon's Bezos leads new investment in AI data company Toloka

LONDON (Reuters) -Jeff Bezos' personal firm Bezos Expeditions is leading a $72-million investment in artificial intelligence data solutions company Toloka, which is looking to scale up its business, Toloka told Reuters on Wednesday. Toloka, which helps train and evaluate AI models using a network of human experts and testers, is part of Nasdaq-listed AI infrastructure firm Nebius Group and has worked with Amazon, Microsoft and Anthropic. Amsterdam-based Nebius emerged from a $5.4 billion deal, finalised last year, that split the domestic and international assets of Russian internet giant Yandex in the largest corporate exit from Russia since Moscow's 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Toloka founder and CEO Olga Megorskaya said the Bezos-led strategic investment was a milestone that should accelerate the company's growth, particularly in the U.S. market, and support its development of products through human experts collaborating with AI agents. "There will always be the need for control, verification, and help from human experts to ensure that the result is actually of high quality," Megorskaya told Reuters. Before finalising the split from Yandex, Nebius would have struggled to secure external investment from the likes of Amazon founder Bezos due to sanctions prohibiting U.S. investments in Russia. Chip giant Nvidia was among the investors in a $700 million private placement raised by Nebius late last year. In addition to Bezos Expeditions, Mikhail Parakhin, CTO of Canadian e-commerce company Shopify, is participating in the investment, Nebius said, and will join Toloka's new board of directors as executive chairman. Parakhin said he was excited to be joining Toloka at a time when the demand for world-class AI data expertise is more urgent than ever. Bezos Expeditions did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Nebius said it would continue to support Toloka as a shareholder, retaining a significant majority economic stake, but relinquishing majority voting control. "The important thing about this round is that we gained the needed flexibility to operate independently," Megorskaya said. She said Toloka anticipated another investment round in the future. (Reporting by Alexander Marrow; Editing by Joe Bavier)