Mercor is building the marketplace for the expertise that trains many of the world's best AI models.
In under four years, it's become one of the fastest companies in history to reach a reported $1B in annual revenue.
Today, we're talking about:
Our recent investment in Mercor and what it means for our investors
SpaceX soars in its public debut
Anthropic's Fable model gets flagged by the U.S. government
Salesforce acquires Intercom's Fin and what it signals about private-market liquidity
Investing in Mercor
The AI labs are spending billions to train ever-larger models.
But the scarce input is not just compute. It's the judgment of a doctor, a lawyer, a banker, an engineer, and a creative, captured in a form a model can actually learn from.
Mercor produces that work. It connects the top AI labs with experts across medicine, law, finance, software, and the sciences.
Those experts generate training data, write the rubrics models are graded against, build the reinforcement-learning environments where agents practice, and benchmark how well a model handles real professional work.
Mercor charges an hourly finder's fee and a matching rate on top of what the experts earn, so its revenue grows with the work moving through the network.
How it started
Brendan Foody, Adarsh Hiremath, and Surya Midha (three friends who debated together in high school) dropped out of Georgetown and Harvard in early 2023 to build recruiting software. It worked quickly, going from $1 million to a $100 million run rate in roughly eleven months.
Then the market moved. In June 2025, Meta invested $14.3 billion into Scale AI, arguably the dominant data provider at the time, and overnight Scale's neutrality was questionable. OpenAI, Google, and other labs didn't love the idea of their training data running through a company half-owned by a competitor, and many cut ties or pulled back. Mercor had already built the talent network and the matching engine to meet that demand, and it stepped straight into the gap.
General Catalyst led the seed in 2023. Benchmark led the Series A at a $250M valuation. Felicis led the Series B at $2 billion, then came back in October 2025 to lead the $350M Series C at a $10 billion valuation.
Why we invested
We believe the largest shift in technology right now is the collapsing cost of intelligence, and that as capability concentrates in the foundation models, much of the lasting value flows to the layer that feeds them.
Mercor sits at that layer. And a few things make its position hard to copy:
A talent network in the millions, where experts refer the next experts
An AI matching system that sharpens with every project
A growing library of training environments worth more with each customer
APEX, its productivity benchmark, quietly makes Mercor a scorekeeper for the very labs it sells to.
We invested at the Series C, at a $10 billion valuation, and in the months since (by their CEO’s own account) revenue has more than doubled ($500M → $1B+).
What it means for USVC investors
USVC holds a $2 million position in Mercor, taken at the Series C's $10 billion valuation.
It's held through a special purpose vehicle (SPV) that sits directly on Mercor's cap table.
To be precise about what you could own with USVC: you would not hold Mercor shares directly, and you would not hold the SPV.
You would own shares of USVC, a registered fund that holds this position as one investment alongside direct companies like Supabase, Mercury, and Recursive Superintelligence and seed-stage funds like Weekend Fund IV.
What that gives you is economic exposure, inside our portfolio, to one of the fastest-growing private companies of the AI build-out.
Normally, a position at this stage never reaches an individual investor. It takes the right connections and a seven-figure check. And by the time the company is public, most of the gains while it was private will have already been captured.
That's the gap USVC intends to close, starting at $500, with no accreditation required.
Watchlist
SpaceX soars in its trading debut. We recently walked through how USVC came to own SpaceX ahead of its listing, and the stock opened strong on its first day of trading. A single day says nothing about where it settles, and past performance is no guarantee of future results, but it was a promising start. Continue reading →
Anthropic's Fable model gets flagged by the U.S. government. Anthropic disclosed new government access controls around its Fable model. On one hand, it’s arguably one of the strongest marketing a frontier lab could ask for: a product treated as too capable to release freely. On the other hand, it is a sign the concerns are real enough to warrant guarding against. For private markets, it's a marker of how quickly model capability, and the scrutiny that follows it, is compounding. Continue reading →
Brendan Foody on 20VC. If you want to understand the conviction behind our Mercor investment, start here. Foody walks through the business, the data-layer thesis, and why he believes the company is still early, much of the same logic that led us to invest. Continue watching →
Salesforce acquires Fin (formerly Intercom). Salesforce signed a definitive agreement to acquire Fin (formerly Intercom). Deals like this are a useful reminder of how liquidity actually works in private markets: an exit is the moment paper value becomes cash, and it arrives on the acquirer's timeline. Continue reading →
Private markets have historically rewarded patient capital. The investors who've built real positions in venture didn't find the perfect moment. They started early and stayed long.
USVC is how you build that position, starting with as little as $500.
Some decisions are better made in conversation than a self-service experience.
If you're thinking about a larger position in USVC or want to understand what we offer investors going deeper into private markets, our investor relations team is here for you.
Investors should carefully consider the investment objectives, risks, sales charges and expenses of USVC before investing. USVC's prospectus contains this and other information and may be obtained at http://usvc.com/prospectus or by calling +1 (844) 988-1720. Read the prospectus carefully before investing.
This communication is for informational purposes only, is not intended to be a recommendation for any investment or other advice of any kind and shall not constitute or imply any offer to purchase, sell or hold any security or to enter into or engage in any type of transaction. Any such offers will only be made pursuant to USVC’s prospectus, which should be carefully reviewed before investing.
Investing in the USVC Venture Capital Access Fund involves significant risk, including the possible loss of principal. Venture capital investments are speculative, illiquid, and subject to a high degree of risk. Past performance does not guarantee future results.
USVC Venture Capital Access Fund is distributed by North Capital Private Securities (NCPS), member FINRA/SIPC. NCPS is not affiliated with USVC’s adviser or its affiliates.
Investing in USVC’s shares involves substantial risk, including the potential loss of your entire investment. Shares are not listed on any exchange, are illiquid, and liquidity is limited to periodic repurchases at the discretion of the Board, which are not guaranteed. This investment is speculative and suitable only for long-term investors who can bear the risks of limited liquidity. Certain conflicts of interest involving USVC and its affiliates could impact USVC’s investment returns and limit the flexibility of its investment policies. Past performance does not guarantee future results. Fees, expenses, and conflicts of interest may reduce returns.
USVC’s shares have no history of public trading. You should not expect to be able to sell your shares other than through USVC’s repurchase policy, regardless of how USVC performs. USVC does not intend to list its shares on any securities exchange during the continuous offering, and it does not expect a secondary market in the shares to develop.
USVC invests in private funds which are subject to certain risks including those related to illiquidity, indirect fees, valuation, limited operating histories and limited information regarding underlying investments. As a result of the foregoing, an investment in USVC’s shares is not suitable for investors that require liquidity, other than liquidity provided through USVC’s repurchase policy. The amount of distributions that USVC may pay, if any, is uncertain.
