Daily Funding Roundup:
August 26, 2026
Nvidia Q2 crushes AH: revenue $54.6B, FY27 datacenter guide $215B, B200 mix 47%, stock +7.8% AH. Mercor $100M Series C at $2B (AI-native talent for frontier labs). ANTH anchor absorption 60%, grey $280 (+27%), 41 days to first trade.
Rounds
San Francisco-based Mercor raised a $100M Series C at $2B post-money (up from $1B at Series B June 2025, 2x step-up over 14 months) led by General Catalyst (extending its Series B lead). AI-powered talent marketplace: uses LLM-powered matching to place software engineers, ML researchers, and domain experts with frontier AI labs and enterprises. 400,000+ candidates matched to date. Enterprise customers include OpenAI, Anthropic, Scale AI (top-tier AI-lab labor supplier). Q2 2026 ARR $85M (up from $45M year-end 2025, +89% growth). Founded 2022 by three Thiel Fellows: CEO Brendan Foody, CTO Adarsh Hiremath, COO Surya Midha. Total raised: $230M. The $2B mark makes Mercor the largest AI-native talent marketplace ahead of Toptal (private-equity, $2B+ estimated) and Turing ($1.1B, series E 2023). The OpenAI + Anthropic + Scale AI trio as top-3 customers is the sleeper story: Mercor has become the default labor-supplier layer for the frontier-lab-and-adjacent ecosystem, roughly parallel to Attio's role in AI-native CRM.
News & Signals
Nvidia Q2 crushes AH: revenue $54.6B (+5% surprise), datacenter $48.4B, FY27 guide $215B, B200 mix 47%, stock +7.8% AH
Wednesday Aug 26 AH Nvidia Q2 print: revenue $54.6B vs $52B consensus (+5% surprise, +73% y/y). EPS $1.34 vs $1.28 (+4.7%). Datacenter $48.4B vs $46B (+5.2% surprise, +76% y/y). Networking $6.2B (+68% y/y). B200 mix 47% (vs 45% buy-side whisper, ahead of consensus). FY27 datacenter revenue guide: $215B (vs $190B consensus, $210B whisper, ahead of most-aggressive tracks). H200 orderbook backlog 26 weeks (matches whisper). Gross margin 76.4% (in-line, no compression). China H20-successor SKU announced: 'GB200-China' shipping Q4 2026 at ~40% de-rated compute vs full B200 (matches July export rulings). Notable first-time disclosure: inference-to-training split at 42/58 for FY27 (was 32/68 FY26, inference growing faster than expected). Jensen call: 'we are shipping to full 24/7 utilization, backlog visibility is 26 weeks; we cannot predict any deceleration in FY27 or FY28 at this compute-to-adoption ratio'. Stock +7.8% AH to $244 (from $226 close), setting up for +$450B market-cap add Thu open.
OpenEvidence + Mercor + Attio + Rox: 'AI-native infrastructure to the AI-lab ecosystem' cohort forms
This week's Mercor + Attio + Rox trio (plus prior weeks' OpenEvidence + Clay + LangChain) reveals a distinct sub-cohort of AI-native companies whose primary customers are themselves AI labs and AI-native enterprises. Combined mark: Attio $1B + Mercor $2B + Clay $3B + LangChain $2B + Rox $550M + OpenEvidence $1.2B = $9.75B combined. Common customers across these: OpenAI (all 6 as customer or investor), Anthropic (5 of 6), Scale AI, xAI, Databricks. The 'AI companies buying from AI companies' flywheel is now measurable: OpenAI + Anthropic + xAI + Meta AI + Google DeepMind + Scale AI combined Q2 2026 revenue $18B; combined AI-native-vendor spend to the 6 above-listed companies estimated $1.2B (roughly 6.7% of frontier-lab combined revenue going to AI-native vendor stack). Bull-camp: 'the intra-AI-ecosystem-services layer is a distinct segment worth watching; the tail is 40+ smaller names at $50-500M ARR range'. Bear-camp: 'the intra-ecosystem dependency risk is not being priced; a frontier lab consolidation event would compress this layer 40-60%'.
PCE preview (Thu Aug 27): consensus core +0.2 m/m, +2.5% y/y (dovish miss target), locks September 25bp
Thursday Aug 27 8:30 AM ET PCE July release. Consensus: headline +0.2 m/m (in-line), +2.4% y/y (vs +2.5% June). Core PCE +0.2 m/m (in-line), +2.5% y/y (vs +2.6% June, dovish target). Powell's preferred inflation gauge showing 2.5% y/y would be the closest reading to the 2% target since Nov 2020. A dovish miss (+0.15 or below m/m) would lock the September 25bp cut plus modestly raise probability of a 50bp September cut (currently 8%). GDP Q2 second estimate Thursday 8:30 AM: consensus 3.4% (from 3.5% advance). Jobless claims 218K (in-line). Chicago PMI Fri, ISM Manufacturing Sep 2. VIX post-Nvidia at 10.4 (fresh cycle low). SPX post-Nvidia AH implied Thu open +1.4%. The 'summer melt-up + sequential AI-IPO tape + Sept-Nov-Dec 3-cut path' is fully locked and load-bearing into the Anthropic pricing IC Oct 6 (41 days).
Anthropic anchor absorption 60% ($53.4B of $89B), grey $280 (+27%), pricing IC math implies $228-230 anchor bump likely
Anthropic Wed anchor confirmations: Yale Endowment $600M new (first Ivy endowment anchor for a private-tech IPO since Facebook 2012), MIT Investment Management Corp $500M new, plus Singapore GIC upsizing to $5B (from $4.5B). Total anchor book $53.4B of $89B (60% absorption, up from 58% Monday). Grey-market Wed close mid at $280 (+27% premium over $220 anchor). Forge Global weekly volume tracking $4.1B (all-time weekly high). The 60% anchor absorption plus +27% grey-mid math is now identically mirroring the SPCX pre-pricing-IC comp (SPCX had 61% absorption + 26% grey premium at 45-day-out). Bull-camp: 'the pricing IC math implies a $228-230 anchor bump is likely, and even at $230 the +22% grey-implied retail premium is sustainable'. 41 days to first trade Oct 7.
Rounds and signals sourced from SEC filings, press releases, and verified news reports. All amounts in USD unless noted. Reporting reflects information available at time of publication.