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

Mecka AI was co-founded in 2024 by four entrepreneurs, including Canadians Josh Gao and Mogen Cheng, who previously built a restaurant fintech startup, and Jason Chong, who joined Coinbase after it acquired his crypto exchange. Duy Nguyen, the only non-Canadian on the team, focuses on operations at Mecka. None of the co-founders have backgrounds in robotics, but they recognized a dearth of physical-world data and saw capturing real-world interactions as the primary bottleneck holding back general-purpose robots, including humanoids.

Mecka, named after "mecha," a fictional giant robot controlled by humans, set out to do for robotics what Scale AI, Mercor, Surge, and other human data companies have done for LLMs. The startup pays people to record themselves performing everyday tasks — like making coffee or fixing cars — using body sensors and smartphones. As of early June, Mecka was projecting that it would end 2026 at an annual run rate of $100 million, Gao told Fortune when the startup announced its previous fundraise. While Mecka AI hasn't publicly disclosed its customer list, many robotics companies and AI labs rely on real-world data captured through this "egocentric" approach, alongside other physical data collection methods like teleoperation, to build their models.

Other startups collecting real-world data for robot training include XDOF, which TechCrunch reported last week was nearing a new round at a $1.2 billion valuation, as well as human-data platforms expanding beyond LLMs, such as Scale AI and Micro1. Mecka's new round, coming just three months after its $60 million raise, suggests investors are moving quickly to back physical-world data ventures, though the terms are not final and could still change. The outcome hinges on whether the deal closes as reported and how Mecka's projected $100 million annual run rate for 2026 materializes, which may shape how rivals like XDOF and Scale AI are valued in the near term.