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

Nov 10 : 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 per cent 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