News Summary

Mercor, a company that connects AI labs with domain experts to train foundational AI models, has successfully raised $350 million in a Series C funding round, reaching a valuation of $10 billion. This round was led by Felicis Ventures, with participation from existing investors Benchmark and General Catalyst, as well as new investor Robinhood Ventures. Mercor initially started as an AI-driven hiring platform but quickly pivoted to providing specialized domain experts, such as scientists and lawyers, for AI model training. The company charges an hourly finder’s fee and matching rate for these services. Mercor is expanding its software infrastructure for reinforcement learning and plans to develop an AI-powered recruiting marketplace. It boasts a roster of over 30,000 experts and pays more than $1.5 million daily to its contractors, averaging over $85 per hour. Mercor aims to focus on expanding its talent network, improving client-contractor matching systems, and automating more processes.