Highlights:
- Mercor has reached a $20 billion valuation after raising $750 million.
- Adarsh Hiremath and Surya Midha are Indian-American co-founders.
- All three co-founders are estimated to be worth $4.2 billion each.
- Their estimated fortunes have doubled from $2.2 billion in October 2025.
- The founders became the world's youngest self-made billionaires at 22.
- Mercor began as a platform connecting freelance coders in India with US companies.
Two Indian-American entrepreneurs, Adarsh Hiremath and Surya Midha, have doubled their fortunes after their artificial intelligence startup, Mercor, reached a $20 billion valuation following a $750 million funding round.
The company's three co-founders, CEO Brendan Foody, CTO Hiremath and chairman Midha, are now estimated to be worth $4.2 billion each, according to Forbes. Their wealth has nearly doubled from approximately $2.2 billion in October 2025, when Mercor was valued at $10 billion.
Announced on Tuesday, the latest funding round attracted major investors, including Benchmark, General Catalyst, Nvidia and Salesforce. The investment marks a significant milestone for the three young entrepreneurs and reflects growing investor confidence in businesses supporting the development of artificial intelligence.
At 23, Hiremath and Midha have already made history in the technology industry. Along with Foody, they became the world's youngest self-made billionaires at the age of 22 last year, surpassing Polymarket CEO Shayne Coplan, who was 27 when he achieved billionaire status, and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who became a billionaire at 23.
The trio continues to hold the distinction, with Midha being the youngest of the three by approximately two months.
Who are Adarsh Hiremath and Surya Midha?
Hiremath and Midha share an academic background, having attended Bellarmine College Preparatory, an all-boys secondary school in San Jose, California. The two were members of the school's debate team and achieved a remarkable record, becoming the first duo in history to win all three national policy debate tournaments in the same year.
Midha is a second-generation immigrant whose parents moved to the United States from New Delhi. According to his personal website, he was born in Mountain View and grew up in San Jose, California.
Hiremath also attended Bellarmine before pursuing computer science at Harvard University. However, he left the university after two years to concentrate on building Mercor.
The two entrepreneurs met Foody during their high school debate days, laying the foundation for what would eventually become a multibillion-dollar AI business.
How Mercor became a $20 billion company
Founded in 2023, Mercor initially operated as a recruitment platform connecting freelance coders in India with companies in the United States.
The business subsequently expanded into data labeling and specialist talent recruitment, connecting professionals such as doctors and lawyers with leading AI companies, including OpenAI, to help train advanced AI models.
With its latest funding, Mercor plans to expand its evaluation and post-training business. These services help AI companies assess and improve their models by measuring how effectively they perform different tasks.
The company's rapid growth highlights the increasing demand for specialized human expertise in developing and refining advanced AI systems. For its young founders, the latest valuation represents not just a financial milestone but also a significant achievement in the increasingly competitive global AI industry.
