According to two sources familiar with the agreement negotiations, a startup connects companies like Open AI and Meta with domain experts needed to train and improve their basic AI models, talking to investors for a series C round.
One person said the company is currently targeting the price of $ 10 billion or more. One person said it had increased by a target of $ 8 billion, which the company discussed a few months ago. However, the terms of the final agreement may still change.
The previous round of Meruar was announced in February – a million 100 million series B, headed by Felicis, is $ 2 billion. Felisis refuses to comment on the new era.
The company has told potential investors that it already has several offers. VCS is reaching Merkor with offers to value the company as much as billion 10 billionFirst reported information.
The Tech Crunch also believes that at least two new investors are trying to raise funds for a possible contract through special purpose vehicles (SPV). However, we believe that no SPV has been formally adopted by the company.
One person said that it was established in 2022, with the annual run rate revenue reaching close to $ 450 million. The company told Tech Crunch in February that its annual income (by multiplying the latest month by 12) reached $ 75 million. In March, Brandon Foody, CEO of Merkor, posted on X that was RR million 100 million.
The company has told investors that it is on the way to accelerate the ARR milestone of more than $ 500 million from anywhere, According to a source familiar with the situation, the beginning of the AI ​​coding assistant cursor. A year after the launch of this product, Infair targeted Million 500 million in ARR. Unlike infer, who is still burning cash, Merker earned Million 6 million profit in the first half of the year, Forbes reported.
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Merkor with special domain specialists earns revenue by providing AI model training to companies, such as providing scientists, doctors, and lawyers, and receives an hour -long search fee and matching rates for their work.
The company claims that five top AI labs, including NVIDIA, along with Amazon, Google, Meta, Microsoft, and Open I have been claimed to be provided with data labeling contractors. According to sources, an external part of its income is coming from all sets of these brands, including Open.
To make his business model more diversified, Merkor is telling investors that he is adding more software infrastructure to learn reinforcement. A training method where a model or agent’s decisions are confirmed or conflict with, which enables it to add feedback and improve over time. The company eventually plans to make AI -powered recruitment market space.
Nevertheless, Merkor faces competition from companies like Surge AI, who is allegedly in talks to raise funds in a Billion costs 25 billionAlso from touring labs and other data labeling firms that are like Scale AI, which are also spreading to RL services. Some believe that the recent renting platform of Open can help AI Dev build a human experienced RL training service.
When arriving for the comments, Foody told Tech Crunch, “We’re not trying to lift at all,” and, “We reject the offerings every month.” He also said that the company’s ARR is more than $ 450 million. However, he made it clear that the company’s income includes the total amount that consumers pay for their contractors before receiving their share. He added that this is a joint accounting practice that is recommended by audit firms and is used by rivals AI and Scale AI.
Startups were made in 2023 by Thame Fellows and Harvard Drop Brandon Fuddy (CEO), Adhish Herimath (CTO), and Surya Madha (COO). The three partners are still in the early 20s. According to Forbes, to take the company to the next level, Merkor recently appointed Cindyep Jain, a former Uber chief product officer, with decades of experience, as its first president.
Merkor recently filed a lawsuit by Scale AI for misusing trade secrets. Scale AI has alleged that one of its former employees who later joined Merkor, “stole more than 100 secret documents related to Scale’s consumer strategies and other proprietary information.”
Maxwell Zeif contributed to reporting.
Correction: The previous version of the story incorrectly describes the progress of possible SPV in this deal. This information has been updated. The story has also corrected the list of big users in Merkor.