Three 22-year-olds dethrone Polymarket CEO to become world’s youngest billionaires after AI startup hits $10B

Mercor, a recruiting startup that helps Silicon Valley’s leading AI labs train their models, secured a $350 million funding round led by Felicis Ventures, with participation from Benchmark, General Catalyst, and Robinhood Ventures earlier this week. The new investment has made CEO Foody, CTO Hiremath, and board chairman Midha the latest billionaires of the AI boom, each holding roughly a 22% stake in the company, according to Forbes estimates.

The Mercor founders dethroned Polymarket CEO Shayne Coplan, 27, who held the title of the world’s youngest self-made billionaire for just 20 days after a $2 billion investment from Intercontinental Exchange, the parent company of the New York Stock Exchange. Before Coplan, Scale AI’s Alexandr Wang, 28, held the title for about 18 months.

"It’s definitely crazy," Foody told Forbes. "It feels very surreal. Obviously beyond our wildest imaginations, insofar as anything that we could have anticipated two years ago."

Mercor's founders (left to right): Adarsh Hiremath, Brendan Foody and Surya Midha. Photo courtesy of Mercor's Instagram

All three grew up in the Bay Area as children of software engineers. Hiremath and Midha met at age 10 through elementary school debate tournaments and later met Foody in high school debate. The trio are Thiel Fellows, recipients of billionaire investor Peter Thiel’s $200,000 fellowship that supports young entrepreneurs who skip or leave college to build startups. Past Thiel Fellows include Figma CEO Dylan Field, whose design software company reached a $70 billion market cap after shares surged 333% post-listing, and the world’s youngest self-made female billionaire Lucy Guo, Fortune reported.

"The thing that's crazy for me is, if I weren't working on Mercor, I would have just graduated college a couple months ago," said Hiremath, who dropped out of Harvard after his sophomore year. "My life did such a 180 in such a short period of time."

Despite their newfound wealth, the founders say they have not splurged on luxury items due to their demanding schedules. Foody said he usually leaves the office around 10:30 p.m., working six days a week. "And so there's not a whole lot of time outside of that to be distracted by things outside of the business."

Founded in 2023, Mercor initially aimed to connect engineers in India with U.S. companies seeking freelance coders. Its platform enables candidates to interview with AI avatars before being matched with employers.

In expanding this system, the company entered the competitive data labeling sector and later faced a lawsuit from Wang’s Scale AI, which accused the startup of stealing trade secrets. "It’s not something we spend a lot of time thinking about," Foody said.