Mercor
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| Mercor | |
| Type | Private |
| Industry | Artificial intelligence |
| Founded | 2023 |
| Founders |
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| Headquarters | 181 Fremont, San Francisco, California , United States |
Key people |
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Number of employees | 300 (2025)[1] |
| Website | mercor |
Mercor.io Corporation (Mercor) is an American artificial intelligence (AI) data startup that provides experts to train AI models and chatbots. The company's three founders became the youngest self-made billionaires in 2025 after starting the company in 2023 at the age of 22. The company is headquartered in 181 Fremont, San Francisco.[2][1]
History
[edit]Mercor was founded in 2023 by Brendan Foody, Adarsh Hiremath, and Surya Midha, three Bay Area high school friends who competed together on the Bellarmine College Preparatory Speech and Debate Team.[2][3] The three dropped out of college to focus on Mercor, and were later awarded Thiel Fellowships.[4][5][6] The company was originally formed to connect freelance programmers in India with companies in the United States, and they developed an AI platform to interview programmers and match them with hiring companies.[2] The company shifted focus to data labeling, matching expert contractors with AI companies like OpenAI looking for help to train their algorithms.[2][7]
In May 2025, the company hired Uber's former chief product officer Sundeep Jain as its first president.[8]
In October 2025, the company raised a $350 million Series C at a $10 billion valuation, making the three then 22-year old founders the youngest self-made billionaires.[2][9]
In January 2026, the company released its first APEX-Agents AI benchmarking report, to show how successfully the leading AI models performed business tasks.[10]
In late March 2026, Mercor was reportedly impacted by a supply-chain attack involving the LiteLLM package, which potentially exposed up to 4 terabytes of internal data and contractor personally identifiable information. The breach led to multiple class-action lawsuits and a temporary pause in work from major clients, including Meta, as the company conducted forensic investigations into the exposure of proprietary training protocols.[11][12]
In July 2026, Mercor acquired AI simulation startup Deeptune.[13]
Business
[edit]Foody is the CEO, Hiremath CTO, and Midha board chairman.[2]
Mercor recruits experts including engineers, lawyers, doctors, bankers and journalists to train AI models and chatbots.[8] Its customers include OpenAI and Anthropic.[8] According to the company, it manages 30,000 contractors as of October 2025.[14] Contractors interviewed by The Verge, New York Magazine, and Wired said they faced a stressful work environment, poor management, and declining pay.[15][16]
The company also produces an AI research benchmark called APEX-Agents, which studies how effectively different AI models perform tasks in business areas including consulting, investment banking, and law.[10][17]
References
[edit]- 1 2 Jetha, Rya (November 7, 2025). "San Francisco's youngest billionaires are betting on a new kind of job boom". The San Francisco Standard.
- 1 2 3 4 5 6 Nieva, Richard (October 31, 2025). "These 22-Year-Olds Are Now The World's Youngest Self-Made Billionaires". Forbes. New York. Archived from the original on November 3, 2025.
- ↑ "3 Bay Area high school friends and college drop-outs launched a $2 billion AI recruiting startup". Fox News. San Francisco Bay Area. March 18, 2025.
- ↑ Arshad, Muskaan (August 16, 2025). "These Gen Z and millennial founders dropped out of college, took $200,000 from Peter Thiel, and have now built companies worth over $100 billion". Fortune. Archived from the original on August 31, 2025.
- ↑ "Mercor - Mercor". Forbes. New York. Archived from the original on September 12, 2025.
- ↑ "Five Harvard Students Just Won $100,000 From Peter Thiel. Now, They Have to Drop Out. | News | The Harvard Crimson". www.thecrimson.com. Retrieved 2026-07-01.
- ↑ Metz, Rachel; Bass, Dina; Ghaffary, Shirin (October 28, 2025). "24 AI Startups to Watch in 2026". Bloomberg. Archived from the original on November 4, 2025.
- 1 2 3 Au-Yeung, Angel (October 27, 2025). "Exclusive | The AI Startup Fueling ChatGPT's Expertise Is Now Valued at $10 Billion". The Wall Street Journal. Archived from the original on October 27, 2025.
- ↑ Iyer, Ram (October 27, 2025). "Mercor quintuples valuation to $10B with $350M Series C". Techcrunch. Archived from the original on November 4, 2025.
- 1 2 Brandom, Russell (January 22, 2026). "Are AI agents ready for the workplace? A new benchmark raises doubts".
- ↑ "Mercor confirms cyberattack as hackers claim 4TB of critical data in possession". Cybernews. 2026-04-01. Retrieved 2026-04-02.
- ↑ "The LiteLLM Supply-Chain Attack That Exposed Mercor". aitrainer.work. 29 April 2026.
- ↑ Lazarus, Lily Mae (July 9, 2026). "AI unicorn Mercor acquires Deeptune after founder Brendan Foody backed the startup". Fortune. Retrieved July 20, 2026.
- ↑ Yip, Jaures (October 27, 2025). "AI startup Mercor now valued at $10 billion with new $350 million funding round". CNBC. Archived from the original on October 31, 2025.
- ↑ Dzieza, Josh (2026-03-10). "The laid-off lawyers and PhDs training AI to steal their careers". The Verge. Retrieved 2026-03-15.
- ↑ Ruth Fowler (May 11, 2026). "I Work in Hollywood. Everyone Who Used to Make TV Is Now Secretly Training AI". Wired. Retrieved May 15, 2026.
- ↑ Vlamis, Kelsey. "AI agents failed at real-world consulting tasks — but Mercor's CEO says they're still on track to replace consultants". Business Insider.