In the tech hub of San Francisco, where startups rise and fall with the tides of innovation, Mercor has emerged as a standout player in the rapidly evolving world of generative artificial intelligence (AI). Founded just two years ago by three college dropouts—Brendan Foody, Adarsh Hiremath, and Surya Midha—the company has quickly become a key connector between specialized talent and the growing demand for AI development. Today, Mercor, a firm funded by the leading venture firm Felicis in its latest funding round, jumped its valuation to $2 billion. Such a valuation makes its young journey really impactful.
Mercor’s story started in early 2023, when Brendan Foody, Adarsh Hiremath, and Surya Midha, former high school classmates and debate partners, decided to take a leap of faith. After ending their sophomore years at Georgetown and Harvard, the trio dropped college to pursue their budding startup full-time. What started out as a side hustle—to connect engineers in India with startups needing freelance coding help — quickly started taking off. Mercor generated $1 million in annual revenue and $80,000 in profit all within months and with no funding at all.
The founders were driven by a shared belief in the untapped potential of global talent. “We were fascinated by labor, and how brilliant people all around the world aren’t getting opportunities,” explained Foody, Mercor’s CEO. “Applying large language models and automating the processes associated with talent assessment, we can solve this inefficiency.”
From Manual Matching to AI-Driven Recruitment
Initially, Mercor had been a human service that connected companies looking for temporary talent and delivered that. However, the founders soon realized their potential in leveraging AI to scale their operations and make it much bigger. Today, Mercor’s platform relies on its large language model, built on top of off-the-shelf options from companies like OpenAI and fine-tuned with proprietary data from its job-seeking process.
Candidates applying through the Mercor platform have a different interview experience. Having uploaded their resumes, applicants are requested to take a 20-minute video interview by Mercor’s AI. Half of this interview is dedicated to their experience, and the other half is for answering a case study that is relevant to the position. The data gathered is used to match candidates with open roles in Mercor’s marketplace. For more specialized positions, there is another AI interview tailored for that position.
According to Foody, the ability of the platform to predict performance is already in advance of human recruiters in internal tests. “There’s already tremendous economic value in predicting human ability better than a human… but adding the rest is where we believe the long-term defensibility and bigger economic value will occur,” he said.
$2 Billion Valuation
Mercor’s growth has been nothing short of meteoric. In September 2024, the company raised $30 million in a Series A funding round led by Benchmark, valuing the startup at $250 million. Just four months later, Mercor’s valuation skyrocketed to $2 billion following a $75 million Series B round led by Felicis. The fundraising process was highly competitive, with investors bidding up the company’s valuation from approximately $1 billion at the start of the process.
The Series B round also saw participation from notable investors, including General Catalyst, Peter Thiel, Jack Dorsey, and Larry Summers. Additionally, Mercor secured funding from the Anthology Fund, a partnership between Menlo Ventures and AI company Anthropic. This influx of capital underscores the strong investor confidence in Mercor’s vision and its potential to reshape the global talent marketplace.
At just 21 years old, Mercor’s founders have already achieved what many seasoned entrepreneurs spend decades pursuing. Their youthful energy and innovative approach have not only driven the company’s rapid growth but also attracted a team of 30 employees, with a median age of 22. This dynamic workforce reflects Mercor’s mission to bridge the gap between specialized talent and AI development needs.
Mercor’s platform has become a go-to resource for AI companies seeking expertise in fields like law, medicine, and chemistry. Job advertisements on the platform often highlight that candidates “will help create high-quality data that will inform the future of AI innovation.” OpenAI, one of Mercor’s largest clients, has utilized the platform to find professional writers and videographers to create training data for its models.
For the founders of Mercor, mission goes beyond making a profit. “Building a more meritocratic way to hire is the largest lever on people’s overall quality of life,” Midha, company’s COO said. The very same thought lies in the statement of the commitment of the company to creating opportunities for talented individuals worldwide, and especially in the developing countries, where access to prestigious jobs often is limited.
As Mercor looks into the future, its founders continue to aim at increasing the capabilities of the platform. The company wants to make it possible for employers to automate longer-term performance reviews in order to track and develop people over time. “Making the most of human potential has always been a hard problem. Now it’s more important and urgent than ever, as we enter the age of AGI,” said Foody, referring to artificial general intelligence.