Bret Taylor’s Sierra Raises $350M at a $10B Valuation

Investors are clearly excited about Bret Taylor, the former co-CEO of Salesforce, and his AI agent startup, Sierra.

On Thursday, Sierra, which focuses on developing AI agents for customer service, revealed a $350 million funding round. This round, led by returning investor Greenoaks Capital, values the startup at $10 billion, as confirmed in a company blog post that echoed an earlier report by Axios on Wednesday.

Founded in early 2024 by Taylor and ex-Google executive Clay Bavor, Sierra asserts that it has secured hundreds of clients, including SoFi, Ramp, and Brex, within its 18 months of operation.

So far, Sierra has raised a total of $635 million, which includes a $110 million round that wrapped up in February of last year, supported by Sequoia and Benchmark, along with a $175 million round that closed in October of last year, led by Greenoaks.

Other investors include ICONIQ and Thrive Capital.

As previously reported by TechCrunch, both Taylor and Bavor have deep expertise in customer service technology. Taylor spent nearly a decade at Salesforce, where he founded Quip, which Salesforce acquired for $750 million in mid-2016. Bavor led Gmail and Google Drive at Google, along with other consumer-focused projects.

Taylor and Bavor crossed paths while at Google. After his stint at Google, Taylor served as Facebook’s CTO for several years, significantly contributing to the launch of Google Maps. He later directed the Twitter board during the social media giant’s acquisition by Elon Musk.

Earlier this week, Taylor announced that Sierra is launching its second year of the APX program, a rotational opportunity for recent tech graduates, modeled after the original Google program that kickstarted both Taylor’s and co-founder Clay Bavor’s careers twenty years ago.

This hiring initiative is notable given the challenges of the current job market, particularly as companies reassess the effects of AI technologies like those provided by Sierra on their workforce needs.

The program targets computer science graduates and offers experience in both agent engineering and product management, with participants tasked with creating AI agents for various industries, including retail, healthcare, financial services, and telecommunications. Taylor described the position as providing what he calls “an irresponsible amount of responsibility”—similar to the creative freedom he and Bavor had at Google—where new graduates are expected to contribute to multiple product launches within their first year.