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Mikhail Polyakov

Why startups pay people to record everyday chores: how data for training robots is collected

Level: BeginnerReading time: 7 min

Topics: AI, Robots

A home kitchen: a coffee machine, a cup and a copper cezve on the counter, glowing trajectories of recorded movements between them, and a faceless white humanoid robot standing by the wall

Short answer: on October 7, 2026, the startup Mecka AI announced that it had raised $60 million in a Series B round led by Sequoia, with participation from NVIDIA, Microsoft's venture fund and others. A funding round is when a company raises money from investors, and Series B is the name of the stage. Mecka collects recordings of human movement to train robots: according to TechCrunch, the company pays people to record themselves doing everyday tasks, such as making coffee or fixing cars, while wearing body sensors and using smartphones. Mecka explains why this is needed as follows: language models learned from what people wrote down, but how a hand picks things up, folds and pours has never been recorded anywhere. Most of the figures about Mecka itself, its revenue and customers, are the company's own claims, and the sources found contain no independent confirmation. If a robot integrator offers to record a company's employees at work, this story leads to five questions for that company: consent, what exactly is recorded, who owns the recordings, whether they can be used for other clients, and how they are deleted. Below, I explain why robots need such data, what is known about Mecka and who else does this, and then go through these questions.

Why robots need recordings of people

Language models such as those behind chatbots were trained on an enormous amount of text. In its announcement, Mecka puts the problem of robotics like this: no one has ever recorded how a hand picks things up, folds or pours, how hard to press or when to let go. Motion, contact, force and the shape of objects, according to the company, cannot be downloaded from the internet, bought or licensed. Robots, Mecka writes, lack not intelligence but experience.

That is why robot developers collect data about the physical world separately. According to TechCrunch, many robotics companies and labs use recordings from the person's own point of view, where the camera and sensors are on the person (such data is called egocentric), as well as remote control of a robot by a human, known as teleoperation.

TechCrunch describes Mecka's aim like this: to do for robotics what Scale AI, Mercor and Surge did for language models, that is, to supply human-generated data that models learn from.

What is known about Mecka

Verifiable facts from more than one source:

  • The company was founded in 2024. According to TechCrunch, its four co-founders have no background in robotics: two previously built a fintech startup for restaurants, and a third came from a crypto exchange that Coinbase acquired.
  • In October 2026, Mecka raised $60 million in a Series B round led by Sequoia. This, and the participation of NVIDIA and M12 (Microsoft's venture fund), is reported both by Mecka itself and by TechCrunch. The full list of investors appears only in Mecka's announcement: among the new ones, it also names Qualcomm Ventures and Samsung; among those who continued to invest, Kindred, Framework Ventures and Neo; and among individual investors, DoorDash founder Tony Xu, Frank Slootman, a former head of ServiceNow and Snowflake, and Milan Kovac, former head of Tesla's Optimus humanoid project.
  • This is the second $60 million round in 2026. On September 11, TechCrunch wrote that three months earlier Mecka had announced $60 million in a round led by Framework Ventures.
  • In September, TechCrunch, citing two people with knowledge of the deal, wrote that the new round was being discussed at a valuation of about $500 million. Mecka and Sequoia did not comment at the time. Mecka's announcement of the round does not say whether it confirmed this valuation.

Mecka's own claims that are not independently confirmed in the sources found:

  • The company designs and manufactures its own sensors, records people in homes and commercial settings, and builds models that turn raw recordings into data: motion tracking, 3D reconstruction of the scene, and hand position with sub-centimetre accuracy.
  • Mecka says its customers include several leading robotics labs and several companies from the so-called "Magnificent Seven", the largest US technology companies, but does not name them.
  • According to the company, in June 2026 its annual revenue at the current pace (run rate) exceeded $100 million, and by the end of the year it expects $300 million. Annual revenue at the current pace is how much the company would earn in a year if it sold all year as it did in the latest month. It is not revenue for the past year.
  • Mecka says it tested its bet on recordings of people with researchers at Georgia Tech, Stanford, UC San Diego, ETH Zürich, MIT and Meta in the EgoVerse study on transferring skills from humans to robots.

One more detail concerns ordinary companies. Mecka calls itself a new kind of robot integrator: a conventional robot installation is done once and then stays fixed, while Mecka, according to the company, records data right on the client's site, further trains the robot on it and improves it with every hour of operation. The company writes that it brings its own hardware, data capture, further training, installation and ongoing support, because its clients have no robotics team of their own.

Who else collects such data

According to TechCrunch, the startup XDOF also collects real-world recordings for robot training; in September 2026 it was discussing a round at a valuation of $1.2 billion. Companies that started with data for language models are also moving into robotics: TechCrunch names Scale AI and Micro1.

What to check if someone offers to record your employees

These are my tips, not legal advice. If an integrator, for example a supplier of robots for a warehouse, kitchen or production line, offers to record how your people work, discuss five questions before signing a contract. Recording people means processing their personal data, so check the specific terms of consent and storage with a lawyer.

  1. People's consent. Everyone who will be recorded knows what exactly is recorded and why, and has given written consent. Visitors and customers do not appear in the frame without their knowledge.
    • Who does it: a manager together with a lawyer or HR specialist.
    • How to check: you have signed consent from every employee who is recorded, and the contract with the integrator describes how it keeps outsiders out of the recording.
  2. What exactly is recorded. Video, sound, body position, force, the computer screen. Ask for a list of sensors and a sample recording.
    • Who does it: whoever negotiates with the integrator.
    • How to check: the list is in the contract or an annex to it, and you have seen a sample recording yourself.
  3. Who owns the recordings. Recordings can have value: Mecka, according to the company, supplies such data to leading robotics labs. Decide whether the recordings stay yours, pass to the integrator or are shared.
    • Who does it: the owner and a lawyer.
    • How to check: the contract states directly who owns the recordings and the models trained on them.
  4. Whether the recordings can be used for other clients. If the integrator trains robots for other companies on your recordings, including for competitors, you should know about it in advance.
    • Who does it: the owner.
    • How to check: the contract states directly whether the integrator may use your recordings or the models trained on them in work for other clients, including without passing on the recordings themselves, and separately whether it may pass the recordings or models to anyone else.
  5. How they are deleted. What happens to the recordings after the contract ends and at an employee's request.
    • Who does it: a lawyer.
    • How to check: the contract sets a retention period and a deletion procedure, and the integrator confirms deletion in writing.

I wrote about what is changing in jobs done with your hands in the article Will AI replace plumbers, electricians and dentists: what is changing in jobs done with your hands.

When this does not concern you

If you are not planning to install robots and no one is offering to record your employees at work, the Mecka news is for you more a signal of where money in robotics is going. Its announcement makes no promises about when such robots will become available to small companies and gives no installation prices.

Summary

On October 7, 2026, Mecka AI announced $60 million led by Sequoia, a few months after a previous round of the same $60 million. The company pays people to record everyday chores with sensors and, according to the company, supplies this data to robot developers, because hand movements and contact, as it puts it, are not on the internet. TechCrunch also confirms the size of the round and the participation of Sequoia, NVIDIA and M12, while revenue, customers and the claimed accuracy of hand-position tracking remain Mecka's own claims for now. For an ordinary company, the main point is practical: if a robot supplier offers to record your people, settle the questions of consent, what is recorded, ownership of the recordings, use of the recordings for other clients, and deletion before signing the contract.

I work on AI agents and automation. If you would like to see my projects or discuss your own task, take a look at my portfolio.

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