Mercor CEO Brendan Foody<\/p>\n
Cody Pickens for Forbes<\/p>\n
Mercor, the AI data labeling firm founded by the world\u2019s youngest self-made billionaires, is in talks to raise $500 million at a valuation of $20 billion, according to a source familiar with the fundraising. <\/p>\n
The new round would double the startup\u2019s worth in less than a year; Mercor raised $350 million at a $10 billion valuation in September from backers including Felicis Ventures, Benchmark and General Catalyst. It\u2019s unclear what investors would participate in the new round. <\/p>\n
The deal is expected to close later this month, said the person, who cautioned the terms of the deal could change. But if the round closes, its three founders \u2014 co-CEOs Brendan Foody and Adarsh Hiremath, and board chairman Surya Midha \u2014 would be worth $4.3 billion apiece, according to Forbes estimates.<\/p>\n
A Mercor spokesperson declined to comment on the founders\u2019 net worths. Bloomberg earlier reported<\/a> Mercor was in fundraising talks at a $20 billion valuation. <\/p>\n Mercor\u2019s platform helps advanced AI labs like OpenAI improve their cutting edge models, by recruiting PhDs, lawyers, bankers, scientists and programmers to create specialized training data. <\/p>\n The funding comes as Mercor has weathered recent controversies. In April, the company said it suffered a severe security breach, explaining that it was among the thousands of companies targeted in a massive hack linked to open source project LiteLLM<\/a>. The startup has also faced other incidents as it has grown: It fired an employee for embezzling funds, and employees suspected North Korean operatives infiltrated its platform using stolen credentials, Forbes reported<\/a> in April.<\/p>\n Despite the troubles, Mercor\u2019s revenue has ballooned. The company says it crossed $2 billion in annualized revenue in June, doubling its sales four four months after hitting $1 billion in February. Founded in 2023, Mercor has become a poster child<\/a> for booming Silicon Valley AI startups run by unusually young, unusually wealthy founders. The three cofounders, who met on their Bay Area high school debate team, were 22 years old when they became the world\u2019s youngest self-made billionaires in October.<\/p>\n More from Forbes<\/p>\n ForbesMercor\u2019s 23-Year-Old Billionaire Founders Grapple With Employee Fraud And North Korean InfiltrationBy Rashi Shrivastava and Anna Tong<\/a>ForbesAI Slop Is Transforming YouTube. Its CEO Wants To Keep It HumanBy Richard Nieva<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mercor CEO Brendan Foody Cody Pickens for Forbes Mercor, the AI data labeling firm founded by the world\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":534442,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[345,343,344,18915,69749,7433,59962,55149,85,46,7435,125],"class_list":["post-534441","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-benchmark","tag-brendan-foody","tag-data-labeling","tag-felicis","tag-general-catalyst","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-mercor","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/534441","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=534441"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/534441\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/534442"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=534441"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=534441"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=534441"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}