Data is the oil of the AI boom—and the startup Mecka AI hopes to tap the vast reservoir of hand gestures, walking gaits, and immense collection of humanity’s physical motions to better train our future overlords: robots.
So-called “embodied” AI data isn’t exactly novel. Wayve, the British autonomous driving company, has trained its models on visual input pulled from car cameras. And, on Friday, the startup MicroAGI announced that it was offering New Yorkers a free home cleaning—if they consented to cameras recording the cleaners’ every action.
Still, Josh Gao, Mecka AI’s cofounder and CEO, believes that his startup is a first mover—and his investors believe he has a chance to strike it big. Headquartered in New York City, the company has raised a total of $60 million across two previously unannounced fundraises: a $25 million Series A round closed in November and $35 million in a follow-on investment. Gao declined to tell me at what valuation he raised the capital.
Framework Ventures, a VC best known for its crypto investments, led the rounds. Other investors who participated included Menlo Ventures, SV Angel, Kindred Ventures, and the angel Ted Xiao, a former researcher at Google DeepMind and founding member at Jeff Bezos’s AI startup Project Prometheus.
“Many folks are now looking and realizing that robotics is going to be one of the most important waves that’s happening,” Gao said on a video call from the Chinese city of Shenzhen, where he was visiting a factory that was producing custom equipment his startup designed to capture human data.
Fintech to robotics
Gao and his three cofounders aren’t your conventional AI hotshots with credentials from leading AI labs or Stanford University. In 2023, Gao and Mecka AI cofounder Mogen Cheng sold their prior startup, which focused on building out payments tech for restaurants. Their third cofounder, Jason Chong, sold his own startup to the crypto exchange Coinbase, and their fourth, Duy Nguyen, was an “OG sneakerhead” who made millions of dollars “flipping” shoes, said Gao.
Rather than focus on fintech, the founding quartet, who knew each other through mutual friends, decided to look at where the puck was going and zeroed in on AI for robots. “Can you have general intelligence in the physical world?” asked Gao.
They spent months devouring research papers, visiting robotics labs, and messaging roboticists on social media. Soon, they landed on what Gao said was an unconventional hypothesis: Train robots on data collected from humans, not from data collected through “teleoperation,” or when humans manually operate a robot.
That idea was mainly explored in research papers, Gao said, but his team partnered with robotics labs to show that it could work at scale. “Nobody really popularly believed this would be possible,” he said.
In 2025, after collecting thousands upon thousands of gigabytes of data, the four cofounders decided that they had enough traction to start Mecka AI. Gao and his cofounders use different methods of collecting data from humans, including custom hardware like body sensors as well as iPhones. There’s real demand, said Gao, adding that Mecka AI projects an annual run rate of $100 million based on already-signed contracts. (He declined to name Mecka AI’s customers.)
“I mean, this is the fastest-growing revenue company that we’ve ever invested in, so the proof is in the business itself,” Vance Spencer, cofounder of Framework Ventures, told me.
But, Gao, whose startup now has 40 employees, doesn’t envision Mecka AI as merely a data aggregator. He wants his company to be on the frontlines, personally helping firms integrate and train robotics models. “Useful robots can be deployed today,” Gao declared, “and immediately.”
See you tomorrow,
Ben Weiss
X: @bdanweiss
Email: [email protected]
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VENTURE DEALS
– Fonoa, a Dublin, Ireland-based AI tax operating system, raised $110 million in Series C funding. Headline led the round and was joined by Eurazeo, Forestay Capital, and existing investors.
– Inherent, a London, U.K.-based AI lab, raised $50 million in seed funding. Index Ventures and Radical Ventures led the round.
– Picogrid, an El Segundo, Calif.-based defense tech company, raised $45 million in Series A funding. Bessemer Venture Partners led the round and was joined by Washington Harbour, GSBackers, and existing investors.
– Pax, a São Paulo, Brazil-based AI company designed for public safety, raised $40 million in seed funding. Greenoaks and Benchmark led the round.
– MokN, a New York City-based cybersecurity company, raised $15 million in Series A funding. GV led the round and was joined by Datadog and others.
– Rep AI, a Tel Aviv, Israel-based AI platform designed for e-commerce brands, raised $6.2 million in funding. Silicon Road Ventures led the round and was joined by Osage Venture Partners, Flashpoint Venture Capital, and Zendesk.
– Iconic, a Los Angeles, Calif.-based M&A advisory firm, raised $6 million in funding from Expa, Oceans Ventures, Fluent VC, and others.
– Volt Harbor, an Ann Arbor, Mich.-based developer of energy storage systems, raised $2 million in seed funding. MFV Partners led the round.
EXITS
– CoStar Group agreed to acquire Zonda, a Newport Beach, Calif.-based data, marketplace, and software platform for the new home ecosystem, from MidOcean Partners for $800 million in cash.
– Tractor Supply Company acquired the veterinary services business of PetIQ, an Eagle, Idaho-based pet health company, from Bansk Group. Financial terms were not disclosed
