Sesame, a company specializing in conversational AI and smart eyewear, has secured $250 million in Series B funding and is now inviting a limited number of testers to try its beta, the company revealed on Tuesday.
Led by Brendan Iribe, a former Oculus co-founder and CEO, along with Ankit Kumar, who previously served as CTO at AR firm Ubiquity6, Sesame is developing a personal AI assistant that communicates with users in a lifelike, natural voice. Their vision is to integrate this AI into lightweight glasses that can be worn all day, enabling users to interact with the device through voice commands.
Sesame came out of stealth mode in February, debuting two AI voice demos called “Maya” and “Miles.” Within just a few weeks, over a million users tried the voices, generating upwards of five million minutes of conversation, according to a recent update from investor Sequoia regarding its involvement in the Series B round.
“[T]he experience was unlike anything we’d used before. Sesame’s conversational layer felt different,” the post states. “It doesn’t just translate LLM output into audio—it generates speech directly, capturing the rhythm, emotion, and expressiveness of real dialogue.”
Initial feedback on the technology has been positive, with The Verge describing Sesame as “genuinely fun” and “natural-sounding.”
According to Sesame, its forthcoming glasses will feature “high-quality audio” and provide users with an AI companion that will “observe the world alongside you.”
Sequoia also highlighted that Sesame’s smartglasses are being designed with style in mind, aiming to make them appealing even without the integrated AI features. There is no official release date yet, as Sequoia pointed out that “hardware takes time.”
Sesame’s leadership team includes other notable figures: Nate Mitchell, another Oculus co-founder, is Chief Product Officer; Hans Hartmann, former Oculus COO and Fitbit executive, serves as COO; Ryan Brown, previously an engineering manager at Oculus and director at Reality Labs, and Angela Gayles, a veteran of Facebook and Meta, are also part of the team.
Alongside the Series B announcement, Iribe shared on X that Sesame is launching an early beta for its iOS app. This app will give testers a chance to experience the AI firsthand, with features that allow users to “search, text and think,” according to Iribe.
Beta participants are required to keep their experiences private for now, refraining from sharing details about features or outcomes outside the official beta forums.
Iribe stated that investors in Sesame’s Series B round include Sequoia, Spark, and several other unnamed supporters.
