Conversational AI startup and smart glasses maker Sesame has raised a $250 million Series B round and is opening beta to a select group of testers, the company announced Tuesday.
A startup headed by the former co-founder and CEO of Oculus Brendan Iribe AND Ankit Kumarformer CTO of AR startup Ubiquity6, is working on creating a personal AI agent that interacts with users using a natural-sounding human voice. The company plans to embed a personal AI agent in lightweight glasses designed to be worn all day and with which users can communicate by voice.
First, start emerged from hiding in February, offering two demos of its technology – AI voices called “Maya” and “Miles.” Soon, over a million people had access to the voices in the first few weeks, generating over five million minutes of conversation, in accordance with a latest study. post by investor Sesame Sequoia about participation in the startup’s Series B.
“[T] his experience was unlike anything we had used before. Sesame’s conversational layer seemed different,” the post reads. “It not only translates the LLM signal into sound – it directly generates speech, capturing the rhythm, emotion and expression of real dialogue.”
According to one report, early reviews of the tech demo appear to bear it out Edge described Sesame as “really funny” and “natural-sounding”.
Sesame says the upcoming glasses will offer “high-quality audio” and access to an AI companion that can “observe the world with you.”
Sequoia also noted that the smart glasses Sesame is making will follow fashion, so they appear like something you’d need to wear even if they do not offer built-in AI technology. There is no time-frame for their availability yet; as Sequoia noted, “hardware takes time.”
On this front, Sesame may have an advantage. Its founding team also includes the co-founder of Oculus Nate Mitchell as chief product officer, former Oculus COO and Fitbit executive Hans Hartmann as COO, and former Oculus engineering manager and CTO of Reality Labs Ryan Brown, and a long-time director of Facebook and Meta Angel Gayles.
In addition to sharing news about his B-series, Iribe announced on X that Sesame is now opening an early beta version of the Sesame iOS app. The app will give testers a hands-on experience of the AI technology being developed, as the app will have the ability to “search, type and think,” he says.
Beta testers are asked to retain their testing experiences confidential for now, which incorporates not discussing features or results outside of the official beta testing forums.
Investors in Sesame Series B include Sequoia, Spark and other undisclosed backers, According to to Iribe.