Mecka AI Near Valuation of $500M in Sequoia Capital Deal Amid Robotics Data Rush

7:15 PM ETDeveloping

Technology Desk

In Short: Mecka AI, a startup that collects and analyzes human motion data for training humanoid robots, is nearing a $500 million valuation in a round led by Sequoia Capital, according to TechCrunch.

Mecka AI, a startup that collects and analyzes human motion data for training humanoid robots, is nearing a $500 million valuation in a round led by Sequoia Capital, according to TechCrunch. The new financing comes just three months after Mecka announced a $60 million round led by Framework Ventures.

Founded in 2024 by four entrepreneurs, including Canadians Josh Gao and Mogen Cheng, Mecka AI aims to address the dearth of physical-world data in robotics. The co-founders, who previously built a restaurant fintech startup and joined Coinbase after its acquisition of a crypto exchange, recognize the primary bottleneck in developing general-purpose robots.

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 in this space include XDOF and human-data platforms like Scale AI and Micro1.

The startup projects an annual run rate of $100 million by the end of 2026, according to Fortune. Mecka AI’s approach is to capture real-world interactions, setting it apart from other human data companies that have focused on language models and other AI systems.

What's still developing

The terms of the deal are not final and could still change.
Duy Nguyen, the only non-Canadian on the team, focuses on operations at Mecka.
Mecka, which derives its name from “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.
Meta has said it trained Emu on large quantities of Facebook and Instagram images and text, with chief product officer Chris Cox calling those platforms a “data advantage” for its AI systems.
That database was configured to receive updates from Meta.
At the time, WIRED could not determine where the underlying faceprint data came from.

Sources

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