Remote Work Platform Becomes Secret Weapon in AI Arms Race

Turing just pulled off the startup equivalent of showing up to a job interview and leaving with the company. The AI infrastructure firm nabbed $111 million in Series E funding, doubling its valuation to $2.2 billion. Not bad for a company that started as a glorified LinkedIn for coders.

CEO Jonathan Siddharth didn't see this plot twist coming. Back in 2022, OpenAI called him in for what he thought was a routine recruiting chat. Instead, they dropped a bombshell: their AI models got smarter when fed high-quality code. Suddenly, Turing's database of 4 million developers looked less like a hiring pool and more like AI brain food.

The company now juggles three growing business lines. Their original remote developer matching service still pulls in healthy profits. But the real money maker? Helping AI giants like OpenAI build better language models through code contributions. Think of it as teaching robots to think by showing them how humans solve problems.

Turing's rise catches the eye of big money. Malaysia's sovereign wealth fund Khazanah Nasional Berhad led the round, joined by a who's who of venture capital. With $167 million in annual revenue and profitability under its belt, Turing plans to double down on its AI services.

The transformation amazes even veteran investors. "When I first met them in 2018 my jaw dropped," says Westbridge partner Sumir Chadha. He thought Turing would disrupt HR. Instead, it's helping shape artificial general intelligence.

Siddharth bristles at calling this shift a pivot. The original business thrives, he insists. But the company's new division names – "Turing AGI Advancement" and "Turing Intelligence" – reveal where the excitement lies. They're betting big on AI's future while keeping one foot firmly planted in their profitable past.

Why this matters:

• A hiring platform accidentally stumbled into becoming a crucial player in AI development, proving sometimes the best business opportunities come disguised as customer requests
• Turing's journey shows how the AI revolution creates unexpected winners – and how being in the right place with the right data can trump having the right initial idea

Read on, my dear:

• finsmes.com: Turing Raises $111M in Series E Funding
• TechCrunch: Turing, a key coding provider for OpenAI and other LLM producers, raises $111M at a $2.2B valuation