Sierra, a San Francisco startup that builds AI agents for enterprise customer service, has reached one hundred million dollars in annual revenue run rate. The company, which is just twenty-one months old, announced this significant milestone on Friday. This rapid growth indicates that businesses across various industries are widely embracing AI agent technology.
The startup’s seasoned co-founders, former Salesforce co-CEO Bret Taylor and longtime Google executive Clay Bavor, expressed their surprise at the pace of this achievement. They wrote on their blog that the revenue was reached a lot quicker than they had expected.
Sierra’s customer base includes prominent technology companies such as Deliveroo, Discord, Ramp, Rivian, SoFi, and Tubi. It also includes well-established businesses from outside the tech sector, including ADT, Bissell, Vans, Cigna, and SiriusXM.
Taylor and Bavor noted that while they anticipated tech companies would experiment with AI customer service agents, they were astounded that older, more traditional businesses also became Sierra’s customers.
The company states that its AI agents can handle a variety of complex tasks. These include authenticating patients for healthcare providers, processing returns, ordering replacement credit cards, and assisting customers with mortgage applications. This effectively automates customer service work that previously required human agents.
Sierra faces competition from other startups like Decagon and Intercom. Despite this, the company claims it is the leader in the AI customer service category.
In September, Sierra was last valued at ten billion dollars when it raised a three hundred fifty million dollar funding round led by Greenoaks Capital. Other investors in the company include Sequoia, Benchmark, ICONIQ, and Thrive Capital.
Based on its one hundred million dollar annual revenue run rate, Sierra is currently valued at a one hundred times revenue multiple. This is a substantial valuation, even considering the company’s exceptionally fast growth.
The startup uses an outcomes-based pricing model. This means it charges customers for successfully completed work instead of using flat subscription fees.
Co-founders Bret Taylor and Clay Bavor first met at Google in 2005, where Taylor hired Bavor as an associate product manager. A Stanford computer science graduate, Taylor co-created Google Maps before founding FriendFeed, which was later acquired by Facebook. At Facebook, he served as Chief Technology Officer and helped create the Like button. He later founded Quip, a competitor to Google Docs, which Salesforce acquired for seven hundred fifty million dollars in 2016.
Taylor then served as Salesforce co-CEO alongside Marc Benioff for over a year. After Taylor left Salesforce in 2023, Bavor, who had spent eighteen years at Google leading products like Gmail and Google Drive, invited him to lunch. It was during this meeting that they decided to launch Sierra.