Sesame, the conversational AI startup from the Oculus founders, raises $250 million and launches beta

Sesame, an artificial intelligence startup and maker of smart glasses, has raised a $250 million Series B round and is opening beta to a select group of testers, the company announced Tuesday.

The startup, headed by former Oculus co-founder and CEO Brendan Iribe and Ankit Kumar, former CTO of augmented reality startup Ubiquity6, is creating a personal AI agent that interacts with users using a natural human voice. The company plans to integrate a personal AI agent into lightweight glasses designed for all-day wear that users can interact with via voice.

The startup first emerged from stealth in February, showing off two demos of its technology — AI voices called “Maya” and “Miles.” Voices was quickly reached by more than a million people within the first few weeks, who generated more than five million minutes of conversation, according to a new post by Sesame investor Sequoia about his participation in the startup’s Series B.

“[T] His experience was unlike anything we had used before. “Sesame’s Conversational Layer looked different,” the post says. “It not only translates LLM output into audio, it generates speech directly, capturing the rhythm, emotion, and expressiveness of real dialogue.”

Early reviews of the tech show seem to agree, with one report from The Verge describing Sesame as “really fun” and “feels natural.”

Sesame says its upcoming glasses will offer “high-quality audio” and access to an AI companion that will “monitor the world alongside you.”

Sequoia also noted that the smart glasses made by Sesame will be fashion-forward, so they feel like something you’d choose to wear even if they didn’t offer built-in AI technology. A timeframe for its availability has not yet been shared; As Sequoia points out, “hardware takes time.”

On this front, Sesame may have an advantage. Its founding team also includes Oculus co-founder Nate Mitchell as chief product officer, former Oculus and Fitbit COO Hans Hartmann as COO, as well as former Oculus engineering director and Reality Labs engineering director Ryan Brown, and Facebook CEO and long-time meta Angela Gayles.

In addition to sharing the Series B news, Iribe announced on X that Sesame is now opening an early beta of the Sesame iOS app. The app trial will allow testers to get hands-on with the AI ​​technology being built, as the app will have the ability to “search, text, and think,” he says.

Beta testers are asked to keep their testing experiences confidential at this time, which includes not discussing features or results outside of the official beta testing forums.

Sesame Series B investors include Sequoia, Spark and other undisclosed backers, according to Iribe.