Former Salesforce Co-CEO Bret Taylor’s AI Startup Sierra Secures $350M, Valued at $10 Billion

Investment in AI agent startup Sierra, co-founded by former Salesforce co-CEO Bret Taylor and longtime Google executive Clay Bavor, has surged, as the company announced a $350 million funding round on Thursday. Led by earlier investor Greenoaks Capital, the Series E round values the startup at $10 billion, according to a company blog post that confirmed an earlier report from Axios on Wednesday.

Founded in early 2024, Sierra specializes in helping enterprises build customer service AI agents. The startup has amassed over 300 clients, including SoFi, Ramp, Brex, and others, within its 18-month operational period.

Sierra’s latest funding round brings the company’s total capital raised to $635 million. Previous investors ICONIQ and Thrive Capital joined Sequoia and Benchmark in the February 2023 funding round that brought in $110 million, while Greenoaks led the $175 million round closed in October 2023.

With a long history in customer service technology, Taylor spent nearly a decade at Salesforce and is credited with launching Google Maps during his tenure there. After serving as Facebook’s CTO for several years, he met Bavor while at Google. Later, Taylor oversaw the Twitter board throughout Elon Musk’s takeover of the social media site.

Earlier this week, Sierra announced the second year of its APX program, a rotational opportunity for recent technical graduates that mirrors the Google program that launched both founders’ careers two decades ago. The hiring announcement stands out amidst a challenging job market, particularly as companies assess the potential impact of AI technologies like those offered by Sierra on workforce needs.

The APX program targets computer science graduates and offers experience in both agent engineering and product management. New graduates are expected to work on multiple product launches during their first year.