AI Tech / news
Mecka AI Nears $500M Valuation in Sequoia-Led Round
Mecka AI, a two-year-old startup that gathers and analyzes human motion data for robot training, is close to a new financing led by Sequoia Capital at a valuation of about $500 million. The deal would arrive roughly three months after the company announced a $60 million round led by Framework Ventures.
The new financing would value Mecka AI at roughly $500 million, a steep step up for a company founded in 2024. Sequoia Capital is leading the round, though the exact amount being raised has not been disclosed.
The deal is taking shape about three months after Mecka AI announced a $60 million round led by Framework Ventures. Menlo Ventures, SV Angel and Kindred Ventures participated in that earlier financing.
Terms of the Sequoia-led round are not final and could still change, leaving both the size and the completion of the deal uncertain.
Mecka AI was co-founded in 2024 by four entrepreneurs. Canadians Josh Gao and Mogen Cheng previously built a restaurant fintech startup, while Jason Chong joined Coinbase after it acquired his crypto exchange. Duy Nguyen, the only non-Canadian on the team, oversees operations.
None of the co-founders came from a robotics background. They identified a shortage of physical-world data and concluded that capturing real-world interactions was the primary bottleneck holding back general-purpose robots, including humanoids. Mecka AI collects and analyzes human motion data to serve that training market.