Bret Taylor's Sierra raises $350M at a $10B valuation | TechCrunch

"Sierra, which helps enterprises build customer service AI agents, announced it raised a $350 million funding round on Thursday. The round, led by earlier investor Greenoaks Capital, values the startup at $10 billion, according to a company blog post that confirmed an earlier report from Axios on Wednesday. Sierra was founded in early 2024 by Taylor and longtime Google alum Clay Bavor. The company claims to have landed hundreds of customers, including SoFi, Ramp, and Brex, among others, in its 18 months of operation."

"Sierra has now raised $635 million altogether, including a $110 million that closed in February of last year led by Sequoia and Benchmark, and a $175 million round that closed in October of last year led by Greenoaks. Others of its investors include ICONIQ and Thrive Capital. As TechCrunch has previously reported, Taylor and Bavor have a long history in customer service tech."

"Taylor spent nearly a decade at Salesforce and years ago founded Quip, which Salesforce bought for $750 million in the summer of 2016. Bavor managed Gmail and Google Drive at Google, among other consumer-facing products. Taylor met Bavor while at Google, where he worked before serving as Facebook's CTO for several years. At Google, Taylor is widely credited with helping to launch Google Maps. Years later, he'd oversee the Twitter board throughout the social media site's takeover by Elon Musk."

Sierra raised $350 million in a funding round led by Greenoaks Capital that values the company at $10 billion. The startup builds enterprise customer-service AI agents and reports hundreds of customers, including SoFi, Ramp, and Brex, within 18 months. Sierra has raised $635 million in total, with prior rounds led by Sequoia, Benchmark, and Greenoaks and investors including ICONIQ and Thrive Capital. The company was founded in early 2024 by Bret Taylor and Clay Bavor, both experienced in customer service and consumer products at Salesforce and Google. Sierra launched a second year of its APX rotational program for recent technical graduates amid a tougher job market as companies assess AI's impact.

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