Mecka AI Nears $500 Million Valuation in Sequoia-Led Deal

Mecka AI is nearing a new funding round led by Sequoia Capital that would value the startup at approximately $500 million. According to two sources who spoke to TechCrunch, the deal's terms are not yet final and could change.

The startup, which collects human motion data to train robots, announced a $60 million round just three months ago. That earlier financing was led by Framework Ventures and included Menlo Ventures, SV Angel, and Kindred Ventures. The precise size of the new Sequoia-led round is not known.

Mecka AI did not respond to a request for comment. Sequoia Capital declined to comment.

The Founders and Their Vision

Mecka AI was co-founded in 2024 by four entrepreneurs: Canadians Josh Gao, Mogen Cheng, Jason Chong, and Duy Nguyen. Gao and Cheng previously built a restaurant fintech startup. Chong joined Coinbase after it acquired his cryptocurrency exchange. Nguyen, the only non-Canadian founder, handles operations.

None of the founders have formal backgrounds in robotics. They identified a critical shortage of physical-world data as the main bottleneck for developing general-purpose robots, including humanoids. The company's name is derived from "mecha," a term for fictional giant robots controlled by humans.

The Data Collection Model

The startup's goal is to provide for robotics what companies like Scale AI have done for large language models. Mecka AI pays individuals to record themselves performing everyday tasks. Participants use body sensors and smartphones to capture data while making coffee or fixing a car, for example.

This "egocentric" data collection method is used alongside other techniques like teleoperation. Many robotics companies and AI labs rely on such real-world data to build their models, though Mecka has not publicly named its customers.

Market Context and Projections

In early June, co-founder Josh Gao told Fortune that Mecka AI projected it would reach an annual run rate of $100 million by the end of 2026. The reported new funding round occurs amid a broader rush for robot training data.

Other startups are also active in this space. Last week, TechCrunch reported that XDOF was nearing a new round at a $1.2 billion valuation. Established human-data platforms like Scale AI and Micro1 are also expanding beyond large language models into the physical data domain.

The following table summarizes the recent funding activities for Mecka AI and a key competitor mentioned in the source report.

Mecka's rapid succession of funding rounds highlights intense investor interest in solving the data scarcity problem for robotics.