Mercor funding: Every round, investor, and valuation (2026)

Mercor pays doctors, lawyers, bankers, and software engineers to teach AI models. AI labs hire these experts through Mercor to write hard problems, grade model answers, and check the reasoning behind them. The company started in 2023 as an AI hiring tool, and its AI interviewer still screens the people who apply.

Mercor has raised $483.6 million across four equity rounds, from a $3.6 million seed to a $350 million Series C. The Series C, announced in October 2025, valued the company at $10 billion.

Its three founders met through high school debate and left college to build the company. Unlike most startups at this stage, Mercor has reported a profit, so its rounds have paid for growth rather than covering losses. Let's dive into Mercor's funding history.

Mercor has raised money four times in under two years, and each round came from a smaller group of repeat backers. General Catalyst joined first, Benchmark led the Series A, and Felicis led the two rounds after that.

Brendan Foody, Adarsh Hiremath, and Surya Midha founded Mercor in 2023 as Thiel Fellows, the program that pays young founders to skip or leave college. Mercor says it grew to seven-figure annual revenue before raising any outside money.

The seed round, announced in January 2024, was led by General Catalyst. At the time, Mercor mainly used its AI interviewer to match software engineers with companies that wanted to hire them.

Benchmark led the Series A in September 2024, and partner Victor Lazarte joined the board. The round also brought in a set of well-known angels, including Peter Thiel, Twitter cofounder Jack Dorsey, Quora CEO Adam D'Angelo, and former US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers.

AI labs had become Mercor's main customers by the Series B in February 2025, paying it to find experts who could produce training data. Felicis led the round, and DST Global and Menlo Ventures joined.

Felicis led again in October 2025, and Robinhood Ventures came in as a new investor. Mercor said it would use the money to grow its expert network, improve how it matches experts with projects, and automate more of its own work. TechCrunch had reported a $6 million profit for the first half of 2025.

In July 2026, Bloomberg, Forbes, and TechCrunch reported talks to raise about $500 million at $20 billion, and Mercor told investors it had at least one term sheet at that price. By August, General Catalyst was reported to be in talks to lead and Nvidia to join. Private-market trackers list Series D shares issued in August 2026, but Mercor has not announced the round's size or close.

Mercor's valuation rose 40-fold between the Series A and the Series C, a span of 13 months. From the Series B onward, revenue grew faster than the price, so each round was cheaper relative to sales than the one before.

The price rose eightfold at the Series B, then fivefold at the Series C. The reported 2026 round would only double it, while revenue quadrupled over roughly the same stretch.

The revenue figures in the table include the hourly pay Mercor passes through to its experts. Forbes reported that Mercor earns a margin of 30% or more on its data projects. Measured against the revenue Mercor actually keeps, the valuation multiple is much higher than the headline figures suggest.

Mercor passed a $1 billion valuation about two years after its founding, well ahead of the six-year average for AI-native unicorns in 2026 startup statistics. Forbes estimated in October 2025 that each founder owned about 22% of the company, which made all three billionaires at age 22.

Three venture firms have backed nearly every Mercor round, and none of its investors has disclosed a stake. The founders still hold most of the company.

Felicis led both the $100 million Series B and the $350 million Series C, which makes it the largest outside investor by dollars. Partners Sundeep Peechu and James Detweiler worked on the deal.

Felicis paid five times its own Series B price eight months later. By then, Foody said Mercor had passed a $500 million annual run rate.

Benchmark led the Series A and has joined every round since. Victor Lazarte, the partner who led the deal alongside Bill Gurley, holds Mercor's only confirmed investor board seat.

Benchmark usually writes early checks and takes board seats rather than leading large growth rounds. At Mercor, the firm set the price early and let Felicis lead the bigger rounds.

General Catalyst led the $3.6 million seed and has invested in every round since. In August 2026, it was reported to be in talks to lead the Series D. If the round closes on those terms, General Catalyst will have led both Mercor's first and latest rounds.

Robinhood Ventures, the venture arm of the broker known for its zero-commission business model, joined in the Series C. DST Global and Menlo Ventures joined in the Series B.

The angels came through the founders' network. Peter Thiel's fellowship funded all three founders, and Hiremath worked as a research assistant for Larry Summers at Harvard before Summers invested.

Nvidia paid Mercor tens of millions of dollars in one quarter for data to train its own models, according to The Information, and has discussed investing in the Series D. An investment would put Nvidia's money into a supplier it also pays, much as Nvidia's own chip business backs the AI companies that buy its chips. The Information also reported that Apollo put a small sum into the latest round.

Mercor spends little of its funding on the work it sells, because customers pay for that work directly. The largest cash flow runs from AI labs, through Mercor, to the experts, with Mercor keeping a cut.

Expert pay is Mercor's biggest outflow, and it is mostly funded by customers rather than investors. In October 2025, Mercor said it paid out more than $1.5 million a day to more than 30,000 experts, who averaged over $85 an hour. Its website now claims more than $4 million in daily payouts.

To keep recruiting, Mercor pays referral bonuses of $250 to $15,000 for each expert it hires through an existing one. Pay can also move down: in November 2025, Forbes reported that Mercor ended a Meta project and offered workers a similar one at $16 an hour instead of $21.

Mercor's own headcount grew from fewer than 40 people to almost 300 by April 2026, according to Forbes, and to more than 500 by August, according to TIME. In May 2025, it hired Sundeep Jain, Uber's former chief product officer, as president.

Product work covers the AI interviewer that screens experts and APEX, a set of benchmarks that tests how well AI models do professional work. In March 2026, Mercor also launched an enterprise platform that helps companies build and test AI agents.

Mercor bought Deeptune in July 2026 for an undisclosed price, and its whole team joined. Deeptune builds simulated versions of business software, known as training environments, where AI agents learn through trial and error. It had raised a $43 million Series A led by Andreessen Horowitz four months earlier.

In March 2026, attackers reached Mercor's systems through a compromised open-source tool, and the breach led to at least seven class-action lawsuits. Mercor had already set up a fraud team and added ID checks after suspected North Korean operatives joined its platform.

Mercor's growth focus is moving beyond the AI labs toward large companies and new kinds of training data. Hiremath, now co-CEO, runs the enterprise platform, and the Deeptune deal adds training environments, which labs increasingly want for building AI agents. Customers already include Amazon, Google, Meta, Microsoft, OpenAI, and Nvidia, and Forbes reported that Anthropic, which sells access to its models, is a major account.

The Series D, if it closes at $20 billion, would pay for that expansion and for more hiring. Foody has said an IPO is potentially on the horizon but has given no timing, and Mercor has not filed. TIME reported $614 million of gross revenue for the first half of 2026, although that figure includes the pay Mercor passes through to experts.

TechCrunch reported that an outsized share of Mercor's revenue comes from a few customers, especially OpenAI, whose spending rests on OpenAI's own funding history. Meta paused work after the 2026 breach, contractors have sued over how Mercor classifies them, and Scale AI sued Mercor in 2025, alleging a former Scale employee took its documents. Rivals include Surge AI, the founder-owned parent of DataAnnotation, and Scale AI, whose ownership changed after the Meta deal.

Mercor has raised $483.6 million across four announced equity rounds: a $3.6 million seed, a $30 million Series A, a $100 million Series B, and a $350 million Series C. It has not disclosed any debt. A Series D of about $500 million was reported in 2026 but has not been announced.

Mercor's main investors are Felicis, Benchmark, and General Catalyst, which have each backed several rounds. Other investors include Robinhood Ventures, DST Global, Menlo Ventures, and angels Peter Thiel, Jack Dorsey, Adam D'Angelo, and Larry Summers. Nvidia and Apollo have been linked to the 2026 round.

Mercor was valued at $10 billion in its October 2025 Series C. In 2026, it was reported to be raising at a $20 billion valuation, but the company has not confirmed that round.

No. Mercor is private and has not filed for an IPO. Cofounder and co-CEO Brendan Foody has said a listing is potentially on the horizon, without giving a date.

Mercor's three founders, Brendan Foody, Adarsh Hiremath, and Surya Midha, own most of the company. Forbes estimated in October 2025 that each held about 22%. The rest belongs to investors such as Felicis, Benchmark, and General Catalyst, and to employees, whose stakes have not been disclosed.