AI training startup Mercor valued at $20 billion in latest funding round


Words reading "Artificial intelligence AI", miniature of robot and toy hand are pictured in this illustration taken December 14, 2023. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration

Nov 10 (Reuters) - Mercor ⁠said on Tuesday it had raised $750 million in ⁠a funding round that valued the AI ‌training startup at $20 billion.

The Series D round drew participation from Benchmark, Felicis, Fundomo, Nvidia and funds managed by affiliates of Apollo, ​among others.

Here are more details:

• Investor ⁠enthusiasm for AI has ⁠fueled a sharp rise in private funding this year, ⁠creating ‌a growing group of heavily capitalized startups carrying multibillion-dollar valuations

• Mercor, which began as ⁠an AI-powered hiring platform, now connects technology ​companies with ‌subject-matter experts whose knowledge is used to train, ⁠test and ​improve AI models and agents

• The San Francisco-based company said it will use the funding to help train ⁠and test AI agents on professional ​tasks

• "Every job in the economy will need its own AI agents and every company will need a way ⁠to train and evaluate them on its own work," co-CEO Brendan Foody said

• According to Crunchbase, AI-driven startups raised $102 billion, or 64% of global venture ​capital, in the third quarter of ⁠2026

• Mercor, which is backed by Jack Dorsey and ​venture capitalist Peter Thiel, was ‌valued at about $10 billion after ​raising $350 million in October last year

(Reporting by Pragyan Kalita in Bengaluru; Editing by Shreya Biswas)

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