Mecka AI is approaching a $500 million valuation in a new funding round led by Sequoia Capital, according to two sources familiar with the deal.
The funding timeline
This financing follows just three months after the company raised $60 million in a previous round led by Framework Ventures. That earlier deal included participation from Menlo Ventures, SV Angel, and Kindred Ventures.
TechCrunch has not confirmed the exact size of the new round. The terms are not final and could still change.
Mecka AI did not respond to a request for comment. Sequoia declined to comment.
The team behind the data
Mecka AI was co-founded in 2024 by four entrepreneurs. The group includes Josh Gao and Mogen Cheng, Canadians who previously built a restaurant fintech startup. Jason Chong joined Coinbase after it acquired his crypto exchange. Duy Nguyen, the only non-Canadian on the team, focuses on operations at Mecka.
The four co-founders do not have backgrounds in robotics. They recognised there was a shortage of physical-world data. They also saw that capturing real-world interactions was the main bottleneck holding back general-purpose robots, including humanoids.
How the data is gathered
Mecka derives its name from “mecha,” a fictional giant robot controlled by humans. The startup set out to do for robotics what Scale AI, Mercor, Surge, and other human data companies have done for large language models.
The company pays people to record themselves performing everyday tasks. These activities include making coffee or fixing cars. Workers use body sensors and smartphones to capture the data.
Financial projections
As of early June, Mecka was projecting it would end 2026 at an annual run rate of $100 million. Gao told Fortune when the startup announced its previous fundraise.
Who uses the data
Mecka AI has not publicly disclosed its customer list. Many robotics companies and AI labs rely on real-world data captured through this “egocentric” approach. They use it alongside other physical data collection methods like teleoperation to build their models.
Other startups collecting real-world data for robot training include XDOF. TechCrunch reported last week that XDOF was nearing a new round at a $1.2 billion valuation. Human-data platforms expanding beyond LLMs include Scale AI and Micro1.
