- Mercor's gross annualized revenue surpassed $2 billion in June 2026, doubling its earlier pace, as reported by The Information.
- The company has shifted from an AI recruiting platform to a marketplace for expert-generated training data, serving AI labs and enterprises that need credentialed human judgment for model training and evaluation.
- Mercor's revenue model includes pass-through labor costs, with 60-70% of gross revenue paid to contractors, resulting in estimated net revenue of $600-$800 million at the June run rate.
- The founder's bet positions expert labor as AI infrastructure, differentiating it from older models like Amazon's Mechanical Turk by focusing on specialized, high-value tasks.
- Mercor raised a $350 million Series C in October 2025 at a $10 billion valuation, following rapid growth from a $1 million to a $500 million run rate in 17 months.
- Competition includes rivals like Handshake, which also reached over $1 billion in gross revenue, highlighting a market where revenue numbers are large due to concentrated, well-funded customers.
- Mercor is expanding beyond labor brokerage with products like APEX (AI Productivity Index) and Mercor Enterprise AI, aiming to create stickier data infrastructure and durable revenue streams.
- Risks include supply-chain cyberattacks, as seen in March 2026, and the challenge of retaining revenue as contractors, competitors, and AI labs become more aware of the market's value.