Mercor’s 22-Year-Old Founders Become Youngest Self-Made Billionaires After $350 Million Raise

Overview

• The new financing valuing Mercor at $10 billion was reported at $350 million, with Felicis Ventures leading and General Catalyst, Benchmark and Robinhood Ventures participating.
• Founders Brendan Foody, Adarsh Hiremath and Surya Midha hold roughly 22% stakes each, with Foody as CEO, Hiremath as CTO and Midha as board chairman.
• Mercor focuses on AI recruiting and human-in-the-loop data-labeling services used to train models for major AI labs, with reports citing clients such as OpenAI.
• The trio are Thiel Fellows who left or paused studies at Harvard and Georgetown to build the company full time.
• Foody, Hiremath and Midha are longtime school friends from Bellarmine College Preparatory in San Jose, where two were champion debaters, and the company is based in San Francisco.