Mercor
NativePrivateUpdated November 3, 2026AI recruiting/talent marketplace + data labeling
- Website
- www.mercor.com
- CEO
- Brendan Foody
- Founded
- 2023
- HQ
- San Francisco, United States
- Total Funding
- $492M
- Employees
- 201-500
Products & Offerings
Mercor Expert Data Platform
Marketplace that sources, vets and manages domain experts to produce training data, RLHF feedback and evaluations for AI labs.
APEX (AI Productivity Index) Benchmarks
A family of benchmarks, including APEX-Agents built with Box and Harvey, that tests frontier models and agents on economically valuable professional tasks.
Mercor Enterprise AI
Service that maps enterprise workflows and deploys production AI using embedded forward-deployed engineers and enterprise integrations.
Mercor AI Hiring Platform
AI-driven interviewing and matching system that screens and places candidates, originally sold as a recruiting marketplace.
Mercor Research (post-training)
New research group that measures model failures on real work, builds targeted expert data and post-trains models to close those gaps.
Executive Summary
What they do
- Supplies vetted domain experts who create AI training and evaluation data
- Runs APEX benchmarks measuring frontier models on real professional work tasks
- Embeds forward-deployed engineers to help enterprises deploy production AI workflows
Why it matters
- Serves OpenAI, Anthropic, Meta and Google, per public reporting
- Reportedly passed $2B annualized gross revenue run rate in June 2026
- Raised $350M Series C at $10B valuation led by Felicis in 2025
Best fit
- AI labs needing expert-level RLHF, evaluation and post-training data at scale
- Enterprises benchmarking agents in law, finance, consulting and medicine
- Teams needing fast access to specialized contract experts for AI projects
Watch-outs
- March 2026 LiteLLM supply-chain breach exposed contractor and source data
- Scale AI trade-secret lawsuit filed September 2025 remains a legal overhang
- Heavy revenue concentration in a few frontier labs creates volatility
Latest News
FourWeekMBA · 7 days ago
NeutralTechJuice · 12 days ago
NegativeStocktwits · 18 days ago
PositiveInshorts · 25 days ago
NeutralIndian Sports Home · 25 days ago
NeutralUnlock Full Intelligence
Pro members get the complete briefing
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Mercor is one of the fastest-growing suppliers of expert human data and AI evaluation. Top labs use it, and its APEX benchmarks are widely cited, so it belongs in any structured evaluation alongside Scale AI, Surge AI, Turing and Handshake AI. Before sharing proprietary data, buyers should check the security fixes Mercor made after its 2026 breach. They should also review the status of the litigation and get contract terms covering expert quality, confidentiality and continuity of the contractor workforce.
Signal Provenance
Latest observation date and source for each signal category
| Signal Category | Last Updated | Source |
|---|---|---|
Funding Signals Last funding round, Funding stage | Oct 30, 2026 | Montclare research agents |
Hiring Velocity Headcount, Headcount growth | Nov 3, 2026 | Montclare research agents |
Technical Output Research papers, GitHub activity | Nov 1, 2026 | Montclare research agents |
News Sentiment News mentions, News sentiment | Nov 3, 2026 | Montclare research agents |
Partnership Signals Enterprise partnerships, Distribution partners | Never | Montclare research agents |
Revenue Indicators ARR estimate, Revenue growth | Nov 3, 2026 | Montclare research agents |
Leadership Signals CEO tenure, Founder-led | Nov 3, 2026 | Montclare research agents |
Competitive Position Category rank, Market share | Nov 3, 2026 | Montclare research agents |
Why this Bluescore?
6 dimensions, each scored 0–10 against all — companies. Each adds its weight × score to the Bluescore — see methodology