The artificial intelligence agent startup Sierra, founded by former co-CEO of Salesforce Bret Taylor, recently announced a $350 million funding round, with the company's valuation reaching $10 billion. This round was led by early investor Greenoaks Capital, and Sierra confirmed the news on its official blog.
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Sierra was founded in early 2024 by Bret Taylor and long-time Google executive Clay Bavor. Although it has been in operation for a short time, Sierra already has hundreds of clients, including well-known financial technology companies such as SoFi, Ramp, and Brex. Since its inception, the company has raised a total of $635 million in funding. In addition to the latest funding, Sierra also received $100 million in February 2022, led by Sequoia and Benchmark; and in October 2022, it received $175 million in funding, led by Greenoaks.
Bret Taylor and Clay Bavor have extensive experience in customer service technology. Taylor worked at Salesforce for nearly ten years, founded Quip, and sold it to Salesforce for $750 million in 2016. Bavor managed multiple consumer products at Google, including Gmail and Google Drive. Taylor and Bavor's collaboration began during their time at Google, where Taylor was widely recognized as one of the creators of Google Maps. Later, he supervised Elon Musk's acquisition of Twitter on the board.
Recently, Taylor also announced that Sierra will launch the second year of the APX project, an internship opportunity for recent computer science graduates, directly imitating the Google program that helped him and Bavor start their careers. This project stands out particularly in the current tough job market, especially when companies evaluate artificial intelligence technology and its potential impact on labor demand.
The APX project focuses on computer science graduates, offering experience in agent engineering and product management. Taylor said that these positions provide a "very bold sense of responsibility," similar to the freedom he and Bavor experienced at Google, with graduates expected to participate in the launch of multiple products within their first year.
Key Points:
🌟 Sierra raised $350 million in funding, with a valuation of $10 billion.
👩💻 The company already has hundreds of clients, including well-known companies such as SoFi, Ramp, and Brex.
🚀 The APX project launched by Bret Taylor and Clay Bavor offers highly challenging career opportunities for computer science graduates.
