Public company, workplace, funding, and market signals
Updated Aug 5, 2026
Mercor is an AI data and talent-infrastructure company that organizes expert human intelligence for frontier-model training, evaluation, and enterprise AI deployment. It began as an AI recruiting marketplace and now combines a global expert network, human-data operations, AI evaluations/benchmarks, and enterprise AI-agent infrastructure.
Primary product
A managed marketplace and platform that finds, vets, interviews, contracts, and pays domain experts whose work produces training, evaluation, and reinforcement-learning data for AI labs and enterprises; related products include Mercor Enterprise and the APEX benchmark family.
Founded
2023
Headquarters
San Francisco, California, United States (181 Fremont Street)
Team size
Approximately 400 full-time employees; third-party LinkedIn data reports a much larger 4,816-person company-page workforce, which likely includes contractors or broader network-associated personnel and should not be treated as employee headcount.
Work style
Onsite
Industry
Software Development / Artificial Intelligence
Sub-industry
AI training data, expert marketplace, talent intelligence, model evaluation, and enterprise AI agents
Offices
Business model
Leadership
Brendan Foody
Co-founder and Co-CEO
Co-founder and Co-CEO; CTO / product and engineering leader
Co-founder; previously COO; current leadership role not clearly specified publicly
Mercor describes a high-intensity, high-standards, in-person culture centered on frontier AI, speed, user obsession, simplicity, and ambitious ownership. Its stated values include Can-Do Attitude, User Obsession, High Standards, Intensity, Simplicity, and Time Travelers.
Work style
Onsite
Compensation
Public US engineering postings show unusually broad total-compensation ranges, commonly about $130,000-$500,000 base/posted compensation depending on role, with senior management postings up to roughly $250,000-$400,000. Some international roles are remote and list location-specific ranges; India postings mention performance bonuses up to 40% of base. Equity is advertised for US full-time employees.
Benefits
Pricing
No public standardized list pricing found. The business appears primarily enterprise, usage- and project-based, with negotiated pricing for expert networks, data-generation studies, evaluations, and enterprise AI-agent work; experts are paid per task, project, or hour.
Differentiators
Technology
Customers
Competitors
Estimated revenue
Approximately $600 million-$800 million net annualized revenue, inferred from reported $2 billion gross annualized billings and reports that contractors receive roughly 60%-70%; the company has also publicly cited a $2 billion annualized revenue run rate, which may be gross billings rather than net revenue.
Mercor announced the acquisition of Deeptune, an AI-agent training-environment company; the entire Deeptune team was reported to be joining Mercor. Public reporting also noted that Brendan Foody had personally invested in Deeptune, creating a potential governance/conflict-of-interest issue that was not publicly resolved.
SourcePublic reporting described a data breach earlier in 2026 and lawsuits filed by some contract workers; the reporting also said Meta ended its relationship after the incident. Details and ultimate outcomes should be treated as developing.
SourceMercor was reported to be in early talks for approximately $500 million at a $20 billion valuation. The talks and valuation were not presented as a closed financing round and could change or fail to close.
SourceFelicis · Jul 2026
Investor profile explains Mercor’s origins, expert-network model, transition into frontier-model training data, and co-CEO leadership by Brendan Foody and Adarsh Hiremath.
Forbes · Jul 2026
Reports that Mercor was seeking approximately $500 million at a $20 billion valuation, with terms not yet closed.
TechCrunch · Jul 2026
Reports early talks for a roughly $500 million financing at a $20 billion valuation, a $2 billion annualized revenue claim, and the Deeptune acquisition; also references earlier breach and worker-litigation issues.
TechCrunch · Oct 2025
Confirms the $350 million Series C led by Felicis at a $10 billion valuation, with Benchmark, General Catalyst, and Robinhood Ventures participating.
TechCrunch · Feb 2025
Reports the $100 million Series B led by Felicis and the company’s pivot from AI recruiting toward expert data and AI-lab infrastructure.
109 jobs at Mercor