Perle
Category: AI Infrastructure
An expert-powered AI data platform that brings human wisdom to AI models through data labeling, evaluation, and robotics data services. Perle was founded in 2024. The company is led by Ahmed Rashad. Based in San Francisco, United States. Team size: 11-50. Total funding raised: $9M. Latest round: Seed, $9.0M, 2025-08, led by Framework Ventures. Key investors include Framework Ventures.
- Founded
- 2024
- Headquarters
- San Francisco, United States
- Team size
- 11-50
- Total funding
- $9M
Value proposition
To provide modular, expert-powered data solutions that bring human wisdom to AI models, enabling the creation of specialized and accurate AI applications.
Products and solutions
WhisperMind (embodied robotics data), EvalCore (AI evaluation), Winnow (regulatory AI), Data labeling & annotation, RLHF
Unique value
A global network of 15,000+ vetted domain experts (doctors, lawyers, engineers, scientists) on payroll across 70 countries providing high-quality human data for AI training, evaluation, and red-teaming.
Target customer
Companies of all sizes developing AI models, especially in specialized domains like healthcare, finance, and law.
Industries served
Healthcare, Finance, Law
Technology advantage
The ability to scale the collection of high-quality, human-verified data through a decentralized and incentivized network, which is often a bottleneck for AI development.
How they differentiate
Perle differentiates by using blockchain technology and cryptoeconomic incentives to create a decentralized network for high-quality human feedback in AI training, improving data quality and reducing bias by rewarding contributors.
Main competitors
Scale AI, Allora Labs, io.net
Key partnerships
Framework Ventures, Zedge, Émet Research
Notable customers
ELM, HUMAIN, Zedge, Samsung, Anvix
Major milestones
Raised $17.5 million including $9 million seed round., Rebranded from KIVA AI to Perle., Launched Perle Labs to reward AI data contributors., Launched public beta of contributor platform on Solana (Oct 2025), Launched WhisperMind, EvalCore, and Winnow product lines, Partnered with Zedge/DataSeeds.AI and Émet Research for image dataset (June 2025)
Growth metrics
Specific growth metrics are not publicly available at this time.
Market positioning
Positioning as a provider of high-quality, scalable, and cost-effective AI training data with offerings in data labeling, annotation, and Reinforcement Learning from Human Feedback (RLHF), targeting growing demand for specialized AI applications.
Geographic focus
Headquartered in San Francisco, USA, with a global focus enabled by a decentralized web3-powered platform allowing worldwide contributors.
Patents and IP
Not publicly available
About Ahmed Rashad
Founder at Perle, previously at Scale AI, Amazon, and McKinsey & Company.
Official website: https://www.perle.ai/