Expert-driven training data and RLHF for frontier AI labs
AI📍 San Francisco, CAFounded 2024
Current Valuation
$3.5B
as of 2025-Q4
UNICORN
IPO Outlookprivate
Is Handshake AI going public?
No. Handshake AI is private and has not filed to go public. There is no S-1 on file.
What is Handshake AI's valuation in 2026?
Handshake AI is valued at $3.5B as of 2025-Q4, set by its Series F ($200M, Sep 2025). That is the last confirmed mark, not a live price — private shares do not trade continuously.
Has Handshake AI filed an S-1?
No public S-1 is on file for Handshake AI.
Who are Handshake AI's investors?
Handshake AI's investors include Kleiner Perkins, Spark Capital, EQT Ventures, Valor Equity Partners, Coatue.
Answers are derived from the roster record shown on this page — filing status, last round and confirmed marks. Where the record is silent, the answer says so rather than guessing.
Handshake AI is the data-labeling business spun out of college-recruiting platform Handshake, leveraging the company's existing network of PhDs, graduates and postdocs to produce high-quality training data and RLHF feedback for frontier AI labs. Sacra estimates revenue scaled to ~$1.1B in 2026 (+349% YoY) at a $3.5B valuation set in 2025.
Company Profile
CEO
Garrett Lord
Founded
2024
HQ
San Francisco, CA
Est. Revenue
$1.1B (2026)
Growth
+349% YoY
Last Round
Series F — $200M (Sep 2025) · Lead: Kleiner Perkins
IPO Status
none
Fundraising Status
Series F · $200M · 11 mo ago
none
Latest Funding Round
Round
Amount
Date
Lead Investor
Post-Money
Series F
$200M
Sep 2025
Kleiner Perkins
—
Vertical Intelligence — AI / ML
No verified Hugging Face organization found for Handshake AI — no attributable open-model footprint. Closed-weights labs are common; this is a distribution signal, not a capability judgment.
Checked huggingface.co as of 2026-08-19. Re-checked weekly.
Talent Signal
Hiring trend
● First snapshot
trend accrues with monthly sweeps
Open roles
78
via ashby
Product-build share
50%
engineering, research, product, design
Trajectory
steady
product-led hiring — 50% of open roles build product; the rest are go-to-market and G&A.
Counted from Handshake AI's live job board as of 2026-08-17; role functions classified from posting titles. Open-role counts are an activity signal, not headcount. Refreshed monthly.
Founders & Key People
Garrett LordScott RingwelskiBen Christensen
Investors
Kleiner Perkins · Spark Capital · EQT Ventures · Valor Equity Partners · Coatue
Products
Expert-graded training datasets for frontier AI labs
RLHF labeling marketplace built on Handshake's PhD/graduate network
Reasoning and domain-specific evaluation environments
Competitors
Scale AI · Surge AI · Mercor · micro1 · AfterQuery
AIData LabelingRLHFGig Marketplaces
Private-company numbers are not real-time. Reflects publicly disclosed valuations from press releases, news reports, and tender offers as of 2025-Q4. Refreshed quarterly.