Brett Taylor's startup Sierra raised $350 million at a $10 billion valuation

Sierra — a startup creating AI agents for customer service, founded by former Salesforce co-CEO Bret Taylor.

The company announced on Thursday the closing of a $350 million funding round. The round was led by long-time investor Greenoaks Capital, and Sierra's valuation reached $10 billion.

Sierra was founded in early 2024 by Taylor and former Google executive Clay Bavor. Over 18 months of operation, the startup has attracted hundreds of clients, including SoFi, Ramp, and Brex.

Total funding raised now stands at $635 million. Previously, the company raised $110 million in February 2024, with the round led by Sequoia and Benchmark, and $175 million in October of the same year, also led by Greenoaks. Other investors include ICONIQ and Thrive Capital.

Taylor and Bavor are well-known in the customer technology space. Taylor worked at Salesforce for nearly 10 years, and previously founded Quip, which was acquired by Salesforce for $750 million in 2016. Bavor was responsible for Gmail and Google Drive at Google, while Taylor himself participated in the launch of Google Maps and served as CTO of Facebook.

This week, Sierra also announced the launch of its second APX program — a rotational internship for recent graduates from technical universities, inspired by a similar initiative at Google that once launched the careers of Taylor and Bavor. The program is aimed at young professionals in computer science and involves participation in multiple product launches within the first year of employment.

Source: TechCrunch