Mercor, a San Francisco-based startup transforming AI-driven recruitment, has created history by minting the world’s youngest self-made billionaires, all aged just 22. The company’s $350 million funding round, led by Felicis Ventures, has catapulted its valuation to $10 billion, with each cofounder — Brendan Foody, Adarsh H., and Surya Midha — holding approximately 22% ownership. Their rise not only surpasses Mark Zuckerberg’s record but also marks a defining moment for Silicon Valley’s new generation of tech entrepreneurs.
The trio’s journey is a story of shared ambition and early camaraderie — all three are Thiel Fellows who once competed together as Bay Area high school debate teammates before venturing into the world of AI and automation. Reflecting on their achievement, Foody said, “It feels surreal… This is far beyond anything we could have imagined two years ago.” His cofounder Adarsh Hiremath, who left Harvard University to pursue the startup full-time, added, “If I weren’t working on Mercor, I’d have just graduated a few months ago. Everything changed so fast.”
Founded in 2023, Mercor began with a simple yet ambitious goal — to connect software engineers in India with U.S. companies through AI-powered recruitment. The platform utilized AI avatars to assess candidates and automate the hiring process, drastically reducing time-to-hire for tech roles. In building this technology, the founders uncovered an even more lucrative opportunity: using their platform’s intelligence to support data labeling and knowledge-based workflows for elite AI research labs, including OpenAI.
This strategic pivot transformed Mercor from a recruitment marketplace into a cornerstone of the AI infrastructure ecosystem, enabling specialized professionals — from PhDs to legal experts — to contribute to frontier AI projects.
In just two years, Mercor’s growth from an experimental startup to a $10 billion enterprise has become a symbol of how AI, ambition, and global collaboration are reshaping Silicon Valley’s innovation landscape. With its young founders now at the helm of one of the fastest-growing companies in tech, Mercor embodies the spirit of the AI generation — bold, intelligent, and boundary-defying.
