Sesame AI, from Oculus founders, raises $250M and launches beta
▼ Summary
– Sesame raised a $250 million Series B funding round and is opening an early beta for select testers.
– The startup is developing a personal AI agent with a natural-sounding human voice embedded in lightweight smart glasses.
– The AI voices “Maya” and “Miles” were accessed by over a million people, generating more than five million minutes of conversation.
– Sesame’s smart glasses are designed to be fashionable and offer high-quality audio, but no release timeframe has been announced.
– The founding team includes former Oculus executives, and the Series B investors include Sequoia and Spark.
Sesame, a company developing conversational artificial intelligence and smart eyewear, has secured a substantial $250 million in a Series B funding round and is now launching a limited beta program for its technology. The startup is led by Brendan Iribe, a co-founder and former CEO of Oculus, alongside Ankit Kumar, previously the CTO of augmented reality firm Ubiquity6. Their vision centers on creating a personal AI assistant that communicates through a convincingly human voice. This AI is intended to be integrated into lightweight, all-day wearable glasses, allowing for continuous voice-based interaction.
Emerging from stealth mode earlier this year, Sesame initially showcased its capabilities with two AI voice demos, “Maya” and “Miles.” These demonstrations quickly attracted over a million users, who collectively engaged in more than five million minutes of conversation. According to a blog post from investor Sequoia Capital, which participated in the funding round, the experience stood out significantly. The post emphasized that Sesame’s conversational interface is not merely a text-to-speech converter for large language models. Instead, it directly generates speech that captures the nuanced rhythm, emotional tone, and expressiveness found in genuine human dialogue.
Early feedback on the technology appears to support these claims. A review from The Verge described the Sesame demo as both genuinely enjoyable and remarkably natural-sounding. The company states that its forthcoming glasses will provide high-fidelity audio and feature an AI companion designed to perceive and understand the world alongside the wearer.
Sequoia also highlighted that the smartglasses are being designed with a strong focus on aesthetics. The goal is to create a product that people would want to wear for its style, independent of its advanced AI capabilities. A specific release date for the hardware has not been announced, with the investor noting that developing such technology is a time-intensive process.
Sesame benefits from a deeply experienced founding team, which may give it a critical edge in the competitive hardware landscape. The leadership includes Oculus co-founder Nate Mitchell, who serves as Chief Product Officer. Other key members are former Oculus COO and Fitbit executive Hans Hartmann, now Sesame’s COO; Ryan Brown, a former engineering manager at Oculus and director at Reality Labs; and Angela Gayles, a long-time executive from Facebook and Meta.
In tandem with the funding news, Iribe announced on the social media platform X that Sesame is opening an early beta for its iOS application. This app will give selected testers direct access to the core AI technology, enabling them to use it for searching, messaging, and analytical tasks. Participants in the beta program are required to keep their experiences confidential and are directed to share feedback exclusively within the official test forums. The Series B round saw participation from Sequoia, Spark, and other investors whose names have not been publicly disclosed.
(Source: TechCrunch)