Kili

Kili Technology is a Paris-based data annotation platform founded in 2018 by Edouard d'Archimbaud and François-Xavier Leduc.

Updated 58 days ago Reviewed by 7wData

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A platform for collaborative annotation of images, videos, text, and geospatial data used to build training datasets for AI models.

Kili Technology is a Paris-based data annotation platform founded in 2018 by Edouard d'Archimbaud and François-Xavier Leduc. D'Archimbaud previously led one of Europe's most advanced AI labs at BNP Paribas; Leduc brought entrepreneurial expertise. The founding insight was that data quality, not model architecture, had become the bottleneck in AI development.

Kili launched commercially in July 2020 and raised $7 million in seed funding in January 2021, followed by a $25 million Series A led by Balderton Capital in July 2021, with participation from Serena Capital and Headline, plus angel investors including Olivier Pailhes (Aircall) and Dimitri Sirota (BigID). The company operates with approximately 61–68 employees and reported $6.7 million in ARR in 2025. Kili's platform supports image, video, text, and geospatial annotation across multiple industries including finance, defense, manufacturing, and automotive.

Named customers include SAP, Airbus, Michelin, Stellantis, Louis Vuitton, Capgemini, Safran, and Crédit Agricole. The platform emphasizes enterprise-grade security (SOC2 Type II, ISO 27001, HIPAA) and flexible deployment—on-premise, cloud, or managed infrastructure. Recent product development has focused on geospatial workflows, LLM evaluation, OCR, and human-in-the-loop quality assurance, with blog content in 2026 addressing what the company identifies as a market shift: public benchmarks have become saturated, and enterprises need custom evaluation datasets built with domain experts.

Kili holds a 4.7/5 rating on G2 and earned G2 Leader and Momentum Leader badges for Spring 2026. The company opened a New York office to pursue U.S. market opportunities, though it remains primarily Paris-based. No Series B funding has been disclosed, and the company has remained operationally quiet since its 2021 funding round.

Who buys this

Large enterprises in automotive, aerospace, and manufacturing building custom AI datasets for proprietary models
Financial services and insurance firms requiring annotated datasets for fraud detection and risk assessment
Defense and government agencies annotating geospatial and surveillance imagery
AI teams and research groups evaluating language models and building evaluation benchmarks
Data science teams scaling annotation workflows from individual experts to 500+ distributed annotators

Publicly disclosed clients

SAP
Airbus
Michelin
Stellantis
Louis Vuitton
Capgemini
Safran
Crédit Agricole

Strengths and what to watch

Strengths

Comprehensive multimodal support (images, video, text, OCR, geospatial) with native integrations like SAM 2 for faster annotation
Enterprise-grade compliance (SOC2 Type II, ISO 27001, HIPAA) and flexible deployment options appeal to large organizations with strict data governance requirements
Established customer base in high-value sectors (aerospace, automotive, finance) with demonstrated ability to scale to 500+ annotators in managed workflows

Watch for

No announced Series B funding since July 2021; runway sustainability and ability to compete with better-funded rivals (Encord, SuperAnnotate, Labelbox) unclear
Operating in a rapidly consolidating market where Scale AI received a $15 billion strategic investment from Meta in June 2025, shifting competitive dynamics toward scale and vendor consolidation
Limited public visibility on customer churn, retention, or product roadmap; company has been relatively quiet on major announcements since 2021 Series A

Recent moves

Key Information

Industry: Data Generation & Labelling
Founded: 2018
Headquarters: Paris, France

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Kili?

Kili is a Paris-based data annotation platform for collaborative labeling of images, videos, text, and geospatial data. Founded in 2018, it helps enterprises build high-quality training datasets for AI models. The platform emphasizes data quality as the key bottleneck in AI development.

What companies use Kili?

Kili serves enterprise customers across aerospace, automotive, finance, and defense sectors. Named clients include Airbus, Michelin, Stellantis, SAP, Louis Vuitton, Capgemini, Safran, and Crédit Agricole. The platform is designed for large organizations with strict data governance requirements and complex annotation workflows.

What data types can you annotate with Kili?

Kili supports multimodal annotation across images, videos, text, and geospatial data. The platform includes native integrations like SAM 2 for faster image annotation and offers OCR capabilities. This comprehensive coverage enables enterprises to label diverse data types required for advanced AI model training.

Is Kili compliant with enterprise security standards?

Yes, Kili holds SOC2 Type II, ISO 27001, and HIPAA certifications, meeting strict enterprise compliance requirements. The platform offers flexible deployment options—on-premise, cloud, or managed infrastructure—enabling organizations to meet data governance policies. Security and compliance are core differentiators for large enterprise customers.

What does Kili focus on in recent product development?

Kili recently focused on geospatial workflows, LLM evaluation, OCR, and human-in-the-loop quality assurance. The platform now supports custom evaluation datasets built with domain experts, addressing market demand for benchmarking beyond public datasets. This reflects growing enterprise need for proprietary AI model evaluation.

How much funding has Kili raised?

Kili raised $7 million in seed funding in January 2021, followed by a $25 million Series A led by Balderton Capital in July 2021, with participation from Serena Capital, Headline, and angel investors including Olivier Pailhes from Aircall. No Series B funding has been publicly announced.

How Kili compares

Direct head-to-head against 3 competitors. Picked by 7wData.

Positioning: A platform for collaborative annotation of images, videos, text, and geospatial data used to build training datasets for AI models.
Customer segments: Large enterprises in automotive, aerospace, and manufacturing building custom AI datasets for proprietary models
Strengths: Comprehensive multimodal support (images, video, text, OCR, geospatial) with native integrations like SAM 2 for faster annotation
Watch for: No announced Series B funding since July 2021; runway sustainability and ability to compete with better-funded rivals (Encord, SuperAnnotate, Labelbox) unclear
Recent moves: Kili Technology wins G2 Leader and Momentum Leader badges for Spring 2026

Positioning: Positions as an enterprise data factory for annotation, RLHF, and LLM evaluation. Competes directly with Scale AI on AI lab and Fortune 500 accounts.
Customer segments: ML engineers and data teams at Fortune 500s (Walmart, Adobe, Genentech). AI lab researchers needing RLHF and LLM evaluation pipelines.
Strengths: Cloud-native annotation with data staying in-situ across AWS SageMaker, GCP Vertex, and Azure ML. SOC 2, ISO 27001, GDPR compliance for regulated verticals.
Watch for: Glassdoor rating of 2.9/5 with leadership rated 2.5/5. Employee reviews cite layoffs, ethical violations, and alleged misrepresentation to customers around the Alignerr product.
Recent moves: February 2026: acquired Upcraft, an agentic sales automation startup, to automate expert sourcing within its Alignerr annotator network.

Positioning: Full-stack annotation, curation, and evaluation platform positioned against labeling marketplaces as software tooling for ML engineers building physical AI systems.
Customer segments: ML engineers and computer vision teams at enterprise AI firms. Physical AI builders at automakers, robotics companies, and drone operators (Toyota, Skydio, Zipline).
Strengths: Multimodal video annotation with AI-assisted labeling (SAM 3), covering video, 3D point clouds, DICOM, and sensor data in a single platform.
Watch for: Pricing is quote-only with no public tiers, confirmed across multiple G2 reviews. Creates a barrier for smaller teams evaluating the platform.
Recent moves: February 2026: raised $60M Series C led by Wellington Management, bringing total funding to $110M, to scale physical AI data infrastructure.

Positioning: Full-lifecycle AI data platform competing with Scale AI and Surge AI. Covers annotation through RLHF, not just labeling. Ranked #1 on G2 data labeling category.
Customer segments: ML engineers and data ops teams at Fortune 50 enterprises. Named customers: Databricks, IBM, Canva, Motorola Solutions, Qualcomm.
Strengths: Customizable multimodal annotation workflows with AI-assisted labeling, deep integrations with NVIDIA and Databricks stacks, responsive enterprise support.
Watch for: Freelancer annotators report unpaid hours and opaque payment processes via subcontractor Lilt, raising workforce reliability concerns at scale (Glassdoor, AI Tribune 2025).
Recent moves: July 2025: closed $13.5M Series B extension from Dell Technologies Capital, bringing total Series B to $50M after $36M primary round in November 2024.

Sources

kili-technology.com — Company mission, product offerings, customer list, security certifications
tech.eu — Series A funding of $25M in July 2021, lead investor Balderton Capital, angel investors, company strategy
kili-technology.com — Founder backgrounds (d'Archimbaud at BNP Paribas, Leduc entrepreneurial expertise), founding year 2018, mission statement
getlatka.com — 2025 revenue of $6.7M ARR, team size of 61 employees, company valuation
www.linkedin.com — Current employee count (47-51 confirmed), company locations (Paris, New York), G2 recognition 2026
encord.com — Competitive positioning against Labelbox, SuperAnnotate, Encord; market analysis
www.precedenceresearch.com — Market size context, Scale AI Meta investment June 2025, competitive consolidation trends
www.glassdoor.com — Employee sentiment 3.7/5 rating, 69% recommendation rate, workplace culture