en.Wedoany.com Reported - Artificial intelligence data labeling company Mercor is in talks to raise $500 million (approximately 25.5 billion reais) at a valuation of $20 billion (approximately 1.02 trillion reais), according to sources familiar with the matter. The company was founded by the world's youngest self-made billionaires.
This funding round would double the company's valuation in less than a year. In September, Mercor completed a $350 million (approximately 17.85 billion reais) funding round at a $10 billion (approximately 510 billion reais) valuation, led by Felicis Ventures, Benchmark, and General Catalyst. The list of investors for the new round has not yet been disclosed. Bloomberg previously reported that the company was in talks to raise funds at a $20 billion (1.02 trillion reais) valuation. Sources said the deal is expected to close within this month, but the terms of negotiations could still change. If the funding is completed, according to Forbes estimates, each of the three co-founders—co-CEOs Brendan Foody and Adarsh Hiremath, and board chairman Surya Midha—would hold wealth of approximately $4.3 billion (approximately 219.3 billion reais). A Mercor spokesperson declined to comment on the founders' net worth.
Mercor's platform recruits PhDs, lawyers, bankers, scientists, and programmers to create professional training data, improving models for cutting-edge AI labs like OpenAI. The new funding round comes after the company's recent controversies. In April, Mercor said it suffered a serious security breach, stating it was one of thousands of companies affected by a massive hacking attack linked to the open-source project LiteLLM.
Despite the issues, Mercor's revenue is growing rapidly. The company said its annualized revenue exceeded $20 billion (approximately 102 billion reais) in June, up from $1 billion (approximately 51 billion reais) in February just four months earlier. Founded in 2023, Mercor has become a symbol of the wave of AI startups in Silicon Valley led by unusually young and unusually wealthy founders. The three co-founders, who met on a high school debate team in the San Francisco Bay Area, became the world's youngest self-made billionaires at age 22 in October.
