Meta acquires artificial intelligence startup Scalepart of the equity and obtain itAt 49% ownership, the deal is certainly unusual.Scale officialAnnounce, the deal values the company at more than $29 billion and will "distribute" proceeds to shareholders and vested equity holders (i.e. employees), providing them with "substantial liquidity" while allowing them to remain shareholders.
Meta also hired Alexandr Wang, the famed founder and CEO of Scale, who dropped out of MIT at 19 to start the company that provides human-validated AI training data.
It sounds like Meta will acquire shares from existing shareholders, but sources told Bloomberg that's not the case and investors will receive dividends. For example, Bloomberg reports that Accel, an early investor in Meta, should receive $2.5 billion in dividends. (Accel declined to comment.)
Scale has dozens of backers, including Amazon and Meta, and was last valued at $14 billion after completing a $1 billion Series F round a year ago. Therefore, such a huge dividend is almost equivalent to acquiring the company. Whether regulators will agree remains to be seen.
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