Mercor

AI Data Services · Venture Capital

Funding

Nvidia reportedly in talks to back AI data supplier Mercor at $20B valuation

The move would double the startup's valuation in under a year, underscoring surging demand for human-expert data over synthetic training sets.

• Nvidia is in discussions to invest in Mercor's next funding round, which would value the AI data-labeling startup at $20 billion, according to The Information; existing backer General Catalyst is negotiating to lead the round.
• Mercor connects AI labs with lawyers, doctors, engineers, bankers and scientists who label, review and evaluate the specialized data used to train and evaluate frontier models.
• Nvidia already pays Mercor tens of millions of dollars per quarter for specialist-sourced data feeding its open-source Nemotron AI models.
• A $20B valuation would double Mercor's $10B Series C valuation from October 2025, when it raised $350M led by Felicis Ventures.
• Mercor's gross revenue hit $614M in the first half of 2026, with its annualized run rate reaching $2B by June.
• Nvidia has been on an investment tear, deploying $18.6B in the quarter ending in April, and previously backed rival data supplier Scale AI's 2024 round at a $14B valuation.
• The talks show AI labs increasingly prizing human-expert-labeled data over scraped internet text, turning data suppliers like Mercor into strategic assets chipmakers now want equity stakes in.