Meta's "significant" investment in data labeling company Scale AI earlier this month sent quite a jitter across the larger tech industry.

A string of reports soon emerged that Meta's rivals including Google, OpenAI and Elon Musk's xAI are severing ties with Scale AI. It gave the impression that the Mark Zuckerberg-led company had struck gold and with Scale AI's co-founder Alexandr Wang joining Meta's superintelligence unit a void of sorts would be left in the data labeling industry for Meta's rivals at least.

But the reality is that there are several companies beyond Scale AI.

The biggest contender against Scale AI currently appears to be Surge AI, founded in 2020 by Edwin C, who has previously worked in a slew of tech giants including Meta's Facebook, and Dropbox, Google and X (formerly Twitter). Edwin had started his career as a research intern at Microsoft in 2007.

According to a recent report by The Information publication, Surge AI has already overtaken Scale AI in revenue, raking in $1 billion in comparison to $870 million by Scale AI.

Interestingly, Surge AI is also bootstrapped unlike Scale AI, which has raised multiple venture funding rounds. In May last year, Scale AI, pulled in a whopping $1 billion in its Series F funding round from deep pocketed investors including Meta and Amazon.

Scale AI, founded in 2016, however, is not the only data labeling startup that has attracted venture capital funding.

The Head and Tale looks at other data labeling startups that have also received funding over the years. It should be noted that not all of these startups are entirely focused on data labeling but data labeling is one of its many solutions they offer. Most of the startups tracked are also US based. It also includes an Indian origin startup iMerit Technology which is now based in the US.

iMerit Technology had last raised funding in 2020 when it had closed its Series B round of $20 million led by British International Investment (formerly CDC Group). Existing investors Omidyar Network, Michael and Susan Dell Foundation and Khosla Impact had also participated in the funding round.

Interestingly, after Meta's investment in Scale AI earlier this month, iMerit Technology's CEO Radha Basu posted on LinkedIn saying: "Scale's success reiterates our mission to engage and involve the best cognitive experts to create the best outcomes in AI. We definitely feel a bit satisfied at the validation of a long journey to demonstrate that engaged and thoughtful experts make all the difference to AI models."

With Scale AI now acquired by Meta, it will be interesting to watch if it will fuel more investments -- small and large -- in the data labeling space and how that will shake the entire AI industry. And will Indian firms also come to gain from it?