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Mecka AI nears $500M valuation in Sequoia-led round

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Mecka AI nears $500M valuation in Sequoia-led round

Mecka AI, a startup that pays people to record themselves performing everyday physical tasks, using body sensors and smartphones, to generate training data for humanoid robots and other robotics systems, is nearing a new funding round led by Sequoia Capital that would value the company at about $500 million, according to two people with knowledge of the deal. Mecka AI did not respond to a request for comment, and Sequoia declined to comment. TechCrunch, which reported the deal, says it has not learned the precise size of the new round, and that the terms are not final and could still change.

The prospective round would come just three months after Mecka announced a $60 million round led by Framework Ventures, with participation from Menlo Ventures, SV Angel, and Kindred Ventures. As of early June, when that earlier round was announced, co-founder Josh Gao told Fortune that Mecka was projecting an annual run rate of $100 million by the end of 2026, a self-reported figure that has not been independently verified.

Mecka AI was co-founded in 2024 by four entrepreneurs, none of whom have a background in robotics: Canadians Josh Gao and Mogen Cheng, who had previously built a restaurant fintech startup together; Jason Chong, who joined Coinbase after it acquired his crypto exchange; and Duy Nguyen, the only non-Canadian on the founding team, who focuses on operations. The founders recognized that a dearth of physical-world data, and the difficulty of capturing real-world interactions, was the primary bottleneck holding back general-purpose robots, including humanoids. The name Mecka derives from "mecha," the term for a fictional giant robot controlled by a human pilot.

The bet is to do for robotics what companies like Scale AI, Mercor, and Surge have done for large language models: pay humans directly to generate the raw data needed to train the systems, in this case by recording themselves doing tasks such as making coffee or fixing cars. Many robotics companies and AI labs already rely on this kind of "egocentric" data capture, alongside methods like teleoperation, to build their models, though Mecka AI has not disclosed who its own customers are. It is not alone in chasing this money: TechCrunch reported the week before this story that a separate startup, XDOF, was nearing its own new round at a $1.2 billion valuation, and human-data platforms built for language models, including Scale AI and Micro1, are also expanding into robotics.

Key facts

  • Mecka AI is nearing a new funding round led by Sequoia Capital that would value it at about $500 million, according to two people with knowledge of the deal; the terms are not yet final.
  • The prospective round follows, by about three months, a $60 million round led by Framework Ventures, with Menlo Ventures, SV Angel, and Kindred Ventures also participating.
  • Mecka pays people to record themselves performing everyday tasks, such as making coffee or fixing cars, using body sensors and smartphones, to generate real-world training data for humanoid robots.
  • The company was co-founded in 2024 by four entrepreneurs with no robotics background: Josh Gao, Mogen Cheng, Jason Chong, and Duy Nguyen.
  • As of early June, co-founder Josh Gao told Fortune that Mecka was projecting an annual run rate of $100 million by the end of 2026, a figure TechCrunch has not independently verified.

Why it matters

The prospective round shows how much capital is chasing a narrow niche: startups that pay humans to generate real-world motion data for robot training. Sequoia's reported interest comes just three months after Mecka's $60 million round, and in the same week that TechCrunch separately reported rival XDOF nearing a $1.2 billion valuation, suggesting investors see this "human data for robots" model, already proven for large language models by companies like Scale AI, Mercor, and Surge, as one of the more fundable bets in physical AI. The founders' own diagnosis, that a shortage of real-world interaction data, not model design, is what is holding back general-purpose robots, is itself a wager on where the next bottleneck in robotics sits.

Who it affects

Robotics companies and AI labs building humanoids and other general-purpose robots are the intended customers: the article says many of them already rely on this kind of "egocentric" data, alongside teleoperation, to train their models, though Mecka AI has not named any of its own clients. It also affects the people Mecka pays to record themselves doing everyday tasks, whose movements become training data. On the investor side, Sequoia Capital is reportedly leading the new round, while Framework Ventures, Menlo Ventures, SV Angel, and Kindred Ventures backed the $60 million round three months earlier. Competing data-collection startups such as XDOF, and human-data platforms expanding from language-model work into robotics, such as Scale AI and Micro1, are chasing the same capital and customers.

How to use it

There is no public product, price, or customer list to evaluate here: Mecka AI has not disclosed who buys its data or on what terms, and the figures in play, the $500 million prospective valuation and the earlier $60 million round, both come from reporting that neither Mecka AI nor Sequoia has confirmed on the record. Anyone tracking the deal should wait for confirmation from the company or the investor and for a final round size, since TechCrunch states explicitly that the terms are not final and could still change.

How solid is it

The headline valuation rests on two anonymous sources "with knowledge of the deal," not on any statement from Mecka AI or Sequoia: the company did not respond to TechCrunch's request for comment, and Sequoia declined to comment. TechCrunch itself says it has not learned the precise size of the new round. The other big number in the story, the $100 million run-rate projection for the end of 2026, is separately self-reported: it comes from co-founder Josh Gao's comments to Fortune in early June, and the article does not say whether Mecka has since met, missed, or revised it.

Risks and caveats

The deal is unconfirmed and unfinished: TechCrunch describes the terms as not final and subject to change, and neither party involved has gone on the record. The $100 million run-rate figure is a co-founder's own projection from several months earlier, with no update on whether it held. Mecka AI has not disclosed its customers, so the demand implied by the valuation cannot be independently checked. And the company is competing in a fast-filling field: XDOF was reportedly nearing a $1.2 billion valuation the same week, and established human-data platforms like Scale AI and Micro1 are moving into robotics too, raising the question of how defensible Mecka's position actually is.