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Indian origin 22-year-olds become youngest self-made billionaires
Adarsh Hiremath and Surya Midha, along with a third, are co-founders of AI powered hiring company Mercor.
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Jeffin T. Kaleekal - Mon, 03, Nov 2025
- 02:38 EST
- 189
The founders of Mercor sharing a lighter moment / Surya Midha via LinkedIn
Two Indian American 22-year-olds have created history by becoming the youngest self-made billionaires in history, after breaking Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg’s long-held record.
The duo, Adarsh Hiremath and Surya Midha, along with the third co-founder Brendan Foody, became billionaires after their startup Mercor, a San Francisco-based artificial intelligence recruitment startup, reached a $10 billion valuation after a $350 million funding round led by Felicis Ventures.
Hiremath is the Chief Technology officer, Midha is the chairman and Foody is the Chief Executive Officer of the multi-billion dollar company, with each owning 22 percent of the company.
Announcing the news, Mercor CEO Foody said in a statement, "We're announcing our $350 million Series C funding, led by Felicis with participation from Benchmark, General Catalyst, and Robinhood Ventures. This round values Mercor at $10 billion, 5x our Series B valuation."
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Expressing joy over Mercor's booming valuation, it shared on LinkedIn, "Since our founding in 2023, we’ve set out to change how the labor market evolves alongside AI. Our mission is simple: unlock human potential by connecting the world’s experts with the AI labs and enterprises driving the AI economy."
Before raising capital, the trio bootstrapped the business from their dorm rooms at Harvard and Georgetown to 7-figures in annual recurring revenue and a talent pool of 100,000 users spanning 25 countries.
Mercor automatically pulls information from resumes, GitHubs, personal portfolio websites, and other sources to create a complete picture of every applicant. This enables it to navigate millions of profiles and pinpoint the individuals who are the perfect fit for a specific role. It also has AI interviewers that conduct detailed interviews before zeroing in on the right candidate.
Mercor now manages over 30,000 contractors, who are collectively paid over $1.5 million each day and teach agents to think more like humans by “sharing knowledge, experience, and context that can’t be captured in code alone,” the startup wrote in a blog post.
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