Cloudflare buys Human Native to bring licensed, AI-ready data to developers
Cloudflare has acquired Human Native, a 2024-founded AI data marketplace that connects creators and rights holders with AI teams through structured, legally licensed content. The price wasn't disclosed. The move strengthens Cloudflare's push to give publishers control over how their work is accessed and monetized by AI systems.
What Human Native actually provides
Human Native turns messy, unstructured content into AI-ready datasets with clear licensing. It makes it easy for AI teams to find, evaluate, and buy data that meets both technical and legal requirements.
- Transforms text, audio, video and more into indexed, cleaned, normalized, structured data
- Standardizes licensing, pricing and discovery so teams can compare options quickly
- Reduces copyright and IP risk by avoiding scraping and one-off legal negotiations
The marketplace functions as a hub of high-quality, compliant datasets that are searchable and ready to plug into training or inference pipelines.
Why this matters for IT and development teams
If you're building or fine-tuning models, sourcing data is half the job-and a major risk area. A vetted catalog of licensed content cuts time to integrate and lowers legal exposure.
- Clear license terms and provenance from day one
- Faster procurement vs. bespoke deals
- Better cost predictability for data acquisition
Expect tighter connections between content owners and AI builders, plus more granular controls over what's used, how it's used, and how it's credited.
Cloudflare's strategy: from bot control to paid access
This acquisition builds on Cloudflare's push to give websites control over AI bots and charge for content access. The goal is a transparent economic model for the next phase of the internet, with clear rules for discovery, pricing and purchase.
"Content creators deserve full control over their work, whether they want to write for humans or optimize for AI," said Matthew Prince, co-founder and chief executive officer of Cloudflare. "Last year we gave publishers and creators the tools to control which bots can access their content, but the real goal has always been to help create a new economic model that actually works for the next phase of the internet. The Human Native team will help us accelerate the next phase, where we build the tools that allow content to be discovered, priced and purchased through transparent channels. This acquisition is about building the tools needed to protect the longevity of the open internet."
Human Native's mission aligns: "We believe that creators should have control, compensation and credit when their work is used to power AI products, ensuring equitable compensation for rights holders while enabling responsible AI development," said Dr. James Smith, co-founder and CEO of Human Native.
Practical next steps for teams
- Audit current datasets for licensing gaps and provenance
- Add license metadata checks into your data ingestion and RAG pipelines
- Budget for licensed datasets and compare marketplace options vs. custom deals
- Track attribution and usage to meet future compliance or model-reporting needs
For legal context on training data and rights, see guidance from the U.S. Copyright Office here. You can also explore Cloudflare's AI initiatives here.
Funding and backers
Before the acquisition, Human Native raised $3.56 million across two rounds, according to Tracxn, with investors including LocalGlobe Management Ltd. and Mercuri Inc.
Level up your team's AI data skills
If you're formalizing AI data sourcing, governance and model workflows, you may find these resources useful: AI courses by job.
The bottom line: Cloudflare is betting that licensed, AI-ready data with clear economics will become standard. For dev, data and IT leads, that means faster procurement, cleaner compliance, and fewer surprises down the road.
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