Sesame, a conversational AI startup and smart glasses maker, has raised a 250 million dollar Series B funding round. The company also announced it is opening its beta to a select group of testers. The startup is headed by former Oculus co-founder and CEO Brendan Iribe and Ankit Kumar, former CTO of AR startup Ubiquity6. Sesame is working to create a personal AI agent that interacts with users with a natural-sounding human voice. The company plans to embed this personal AI agent into lightweight eyewear. The glasses are designed to be worn throughout the day, and users can interact with the AI using their voice.
The startup first emerged from stealth in February, when it offered two demos of its technology featuring AI voices named Maya and Miles. These voices were soon accessed by more than a million people within the first few weeks. Those users generated more than five million minutes of conversation. According to a post from Sesame investor Sequoia, the experience was unlike anything they had used before. The post states that Sesame’s conversational layer felt different because it does not just translate language model output into audio. Instead, it generates speech directly, capturing the rhythm, emotion, and expressiveness of real dialogue.
Early reviews of the technology demo seem to agree. One report described Sesame as genuinely fun and natural-sounding. Sesame says its upcoming glasses will offer high-quality audio and access to an AI companion that will observe the world alongside you. Sequoia also noted the smart glasses Sesame is building will be fashion forward. They are designed to look like something you would choose to wear even without the built-in AI technology. A timeframe for their availability is not yet being shared, as the company noted that hardware takes time.
Sesame may have an advantage in hardware development due to its experienced team. The founding team includes Oculus co-founder Nate Mitchell as its Chief Product Officer. It also includes former Oculus COO and Fitbit executive Hans Hartmann as COO, former Oculus engineer manager and Reality Labs engineering director Ryan Brown, and longtime Facebook and Meta executive Angela Gayles.
In addition to the funding news, the company announced it is opening an early beta of the Sesame iOS app. This app experience will allow testers to get hands-on with the AI technology. The app will have the ability to search, text, and think. Beta testers are asked to keep their testing experiences confidential for the time being. This includes not discussing features or results outside of the official beta test forums. Investors in the Sesame Series B round include Sequoia, Spark, and other undisclosed names.