Mecka AI Nears $500M Valuation in Sequoia-Led Deal — SkimNews
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- Mecka AI is nearing a Sequoia Capital-led round at roughly $500 million, just three months after a $60 million Framework Ventures raise that included Menlo Ventures, SV Angel, and Kindred Ventures.
- Mecka pays people to record themselves performing everyday tasks via body sensors and smartphones, producing egocentric data that robotics companies and AI labs use to train humanoid robots.
- Founders Josh Gao, Mogen Cheng, Jason Chong, and Duy Nguyen launched Mecka in 2024 without robotics backgrounds; Gao and Cheng previously built a restaurant fintech startup, and Chong joined Coinbase after his crypto exchange was acquired.
- Gao said in early June that Mecka projected a $100 million annual run rate by the end of 2026.
- Competitor XDOF, along with Scale AI and Micro1, is pursuing adjacent human-data approaches for robot training, and XDOF is reportedly nearing its own round at a $1.2 billion valuation.
- The deal's terms are not final and could still change; Mecka didn't respond to comment and Sequoia declined.
Why it matters: Mecka moved from a $60 million raise to a roughly $500 million Sequoia-led valuation in three months — concrete evidence that VCs are paying up for real-world robot training data, where competitor XDOF is reportedly nearing its own $1.2 billion round.
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