Vendor profile · Directory · Managed service
CloudFactory
A managed-workforce company: trained analyst teams in Nepal and Kenya delivering annotation and data processing as a consumption-priced service.
| Model | Managed workforce + AI-assisted platform |
|---|---|
| Founded | 2010 |
| Headquarters | Reading, United Kingdom (founded in Kathmandu; US office in Durham, NC) |
| Pricing | Not published — consumption-based with an annual commitment |
| Website | www.cloudfactory.com |
What CloudFactory does
CloudFactory was founded in 2010 in Kathmandu by Mark Sears and now operates from the UK and US with delivery teams primarily in Nepal and Kenya. It reports more than 7,000 data analysts and 700+ client companies, and 25+ million hours of data work delivered.
The offer is people plus platform: managed teams do annotation, document processing and human-in-the-loop operations (including RLHF and prompt work) inside CloudFactory’s tooling or the client’s own. Pricing is consumption-based with an annual spending commitment.
Strengths
- Managed, trained teams with continuity — not an open marketplace
- Long operating history and large reported delivery base
- Impact-sourcing model with structured worker development
Considerations
- No published rates; annual commitment expected
- NLP depth, especially non-English, is narrower than its CV strength
- Headquarters footprint spans UK/US/Nepal/Kenya — confirm contracting entity in diligence
Other managed services in the directory
- Scale AI — The largest enterprise data engine: annotation, RLHF, evaluation and red-teaming delivered as managed programs for frontier labs and governments.
- Appen — The category’s longest-running operator: a publicly traded managed data provider with a crowd of over one million contributors in 170+ countries.
- Surge AI — The bootstrapped quality maximalist: over $1 billion in 2024 revenue with no outside capital, built on credentialed experts rather than crowd volume.
- iMerit — A managed data-services company that pairs employed specialist teams with its Scholars expert network — and, since 2026, sits inside EXL.
- Sama — The original impact-sourcing annotation company: a Certified B Corp running managed programs with its own full-time workforce in Kenya and Uganda.
- Cogito Tech — A US-registered managed annotation company whose India-based workforce and specialist consultants concentrate on healthcare, legal and financial AI data.
- Label Your Data — A managed annotation service that does the rarest thing in this market: publishes its per-unit prices, with no minimum order.
- Zilo AI — A Bangalore staffing-and-annotation firm with a distinct model: its annotators work inside the platform you already use, instead of selling you theirs.
- TELUS Digital — The telecom-owned data giant: TELUS’s digital arm runs one of the world’s largest AI data operations, built on the $935M acquisition of Lionbridge AI.
Frequently asked questions
What does CloudFactory do?
A managed-workforce company: trained analyst teams in Nepal and Kenya delivering annotation and data processing as a consumption-priced service.
How much does CloudFactory cost?
CloudFactory does not publish pricing (not published — consumption-based with an annual commitment). Any figure quoted by third parties is an estimate; budget discovery requires engaging the vendor directly.
Who is CloudFactory best for?
Ongoing, steady-state data operations — document processing, CV annotation, back-office AI workflows — where team continuity matters more than burst scale.
Who should not use CloudFactory?
Frontier-scale RLHF surges or deep non-English NLP, where third-party reviews note thinner coverage.
Sources
- Best Data Labeling Companies for Fintech and Financial AI (CloudFactory profile) — Helpware (2026)
- CloudFactory company profile — DataAnnotationCompanies.com (accessed Nov 2026)
Facts on this page were drawn from the public sources above, checked November 2026. If you spot an error, tell us at the corrections address in the footer — we fix sourced errors and note the change.
Profile last updated: November 8, 2026 · How we write profiles · Corrections: [email protected]