Mercor Seeks $20 Billion Valuation as AI Labs Fuel Exploding Demand for Expert Data
Updated
Updated · The New York Times · Jul 10
Mercor Seeks $20 Billion Valuation as AI Labs Fuel Exploding Demand for Expert Data
3 articles · Updated · The New York Times · Jul 10
Summary
Mercor is discussing a funding deal at a $20 billion valuation, doubling from its $10 billion valuation in October as demand for high-end AI training data surges.
30,000 contractors earn more than $4 million a day through Mercor to supply expert-vetted data, with postings seeking specialists from Hebrew voice actors to physicists and doctors.
OpenAI, Anthropic and other labs increasingly want lawyers, mathematicians and professors to refine advanced models rather than low-paid workers doing rote tagging or transcription.
That shift has turned data-training middlemen into some of Silicon Valley's fastest-growing start-ups: Handshake says its annualized revenue hit $1 billion in April, up from $550 million at the start of the year.
The boom carries a built-in tension: firms like Mercor need client models to keep improving to prove their value, but also to stay imperfect enough that labs keep buying more human data.