Artificial intelligence startup Mercor has raised $350 million in a Series C funding round, pushing its valuation to $10 billion, a fivefold increase since February 2025. Felicis led the round, joined by Benchmark, General Catalyst, and Robinhood Ventures. According to the company’s blog post, the new funding will support three areas. Namely, expanding its talent network, improving its expert-matching systems, and enhancing delivery speed. Founded by three Thiel Fellows, Mercor initially focused on recruitment by analyzing resumes and interviews but later pivoted to hiring professionals to train AI models.
Mercor now manages over 30,000 contractors who collectively earn more than $1.5 million daily while teaching AI systems through human context and experience. The company’s growth follows industry changes after Meta’s $14.3 billion investment in Scale AI, which raised neutrality concerns among major AI labs. Co-Founder Adarsh Hiremath told Forbes, “It just doesn’t happen too often in startups where your biggest competitor gets torpedoed overnight.” Mercor continues to face rivals such as Surge AI, Turing AI, and Invisible Technologies in the competitive data-labeling market.
