Mecka AI nears $500M valuation in Sequoia-led deal amid rush for robot training data
| Source: TechCrunch AI
Tags: Mecka AI, Sequoia Capital, robotics, humanoid robots, robot training data, venture capital, Series B
Mecka AI, a two-year-old startup building Scale AI for robotics, is closing a Sequoia-led round at roughly $500M valuation — just three months after its $60M Series A — as it races toward $100M ARR by year-end collecting human motion data for humanoid robot training.
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Mecka AI has emerged as one of the fastest-scaling startups in the robot training data sector. Founded in 2024 by four entrepreneurs with no robotics backgrounds, the company identified the core bottleneck for humanoid robot development: the shortage of real-world physical motion data. The startup pays workers to record everyday tasks — making coffee, fixing cars — using body sensors and smartphones, generating egocentric data that robotics companies and AI labs use to train their models.\n\nThe company announced a $60M Series A led by Framework Ventures in June 2026, with Menlo Ventures, SV Angel, and Kindred Ventures participating. Just three months later, Sequoia Capital is reportedly leading a new round at a $500M valuation. The precise round size remains undisclosed and terms are not final, per TechCrunch sources.\n\nCo-founder Josh Gao told Fortune the company was projecting $100M ARR by end of 2026. Competition is intensifying: rival XDOF was reportedly approaching a $1.2B valuation last week, and Scale AI and Micro1 are also expanding into physical-world data collection.\n\nThe rapid fundraising cadence signals that physical training data is becoming a recognized infrastructure category for robotics — mirroring the wave of LLM data companies that scaled quickly from 2022 to 2024.