Mecka AI eyes $500M valuation in Sequoia-led round
Original: Mecka AI nears $500M valuation in Sequoia-led deal amid rush for robot training data
Why This Matters
Physical-world training data is becoming as strategically valuable as GPU compute for the next wave of robotics.
Robot training data startup Mecka AI is nearing a new Sequoia Capital-led funding round at roughly $500M valuation, just three months after closing a $60M Series led by Framework Ventures. The company, founded in 2024, pays people to record everyday tasks using body sensors and smartphones to generate motion data for humanoid robots.
Mecka AI, a 2024-founded startup that captures human motion data to train humanoid and general-purpose robots, is close to securing a new Sequoia Capital-led round at approximately $500 million valuation, according to two sources familiar with the deal. Terms are not yet final. The company declined to comment; Sequoia also declined.
The deal comes only three months after Mecka closed a $60M round led by Framework Ventures, with Menlo Ventures, SV Angel, and Kindred Ventures also participating. In June, co-founder Josh Gao told Fortune the startup was projecting a $100M annual run rate by end of 2026.
Mecka was co-founded by Josh Gao and Mogen Cheng — both veterans of a restaurant fintech — alongside Jason Chong, who sold a crypto exchange to Coinbase, and Duy Nguyen, who heads operations. None have robotics backgrounds. Their thesis: real-world physical data is the primary bottleneck for general-purpose robots, similar to how labeled text data constrained early LLMs. The startup's model mirrors Scale AI and Surge, but for embodied AI — paying workers to perform everyday tasks like making coffee or fixing cars while wearing body sensors and using smartphones.
The company's name derives from "mecha," science fiction's human-piloted giant robots. Mecka isn't alone in the space: XDOF was recently reported nearing a $1.2B valuation, while Scale AI and Micro1 are expanding their human-data platforms into robotics.