Sierra, a 21-month-old San Francisco-based startup building AI customer service agents for businesses, was announced on Friday it hit $100 million in annualized revenue (ARR). The company’s rapid growth suggests that businesses across industries are embracing AI agents.
The startup’s pace of growth surprised even its seasoned co-founders, former Salesforce co-CEO Bret Taylor and longtime Google alum Clay Bavor, who wrote in their blog: “This is much faster than we expected.”
Sierra’s clients include technology companies such as Deliveroo, Discord, Ramp, Rivian, SoFi and Tubi, as well as established non-tech businesses such as ADT, Bissell, Vans, Cigna and SiriusXM.
Taylor and Bavor said they expected tech companies to be comfortable experimenting with AI customer service agents, but were surprised that older businesses also became Sierra customers.
The company says it can create AI agents that can handle tasks like verifying patient identities for health care providers, processing returns, ordering replacement credit cards and helping customers apply for mortgages — essentially automating customer service work that previously required human agents.
Sierra faces competition from startups like Decagon and Intercom, but the company claims to be a leader in the AI customer service category.
Sierra was last valued at $10 billion when it raised a $350 million round led by Greenoaks Capital in September. Other investors in the company include Sequoia, Benchmark, ICONIQ and Thrive Capital.
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Based on ARR of $100 million, Sierra is currently valued at a multiple of 100 times revenue, a heavy valuation despite its extremely fast growth.
The startup uses a results-based pricing model, charging customers for work completed rather than charging fixed subscriptions.
Taylor and Bavor met at Google in 2005, where Taylor hired Bavor as an associate product manager.
A Stanford computer science graduate, Taylor co-created Google Maps before founding FriendFeed, which was acquired by Facebook. At Facebook, he served as CTO and helped create the virtual “Like” button. He later founded Quip, a Google Docs competitor that Salesforce acquired for $750 million in 2016.
Taylor went on to serve as Salesforce’s co-CEO alongside Marc Benioff for more than a year. After Taylor left Salesforce in 2023, Bavor — who had spent 18 years on top Google products like Gmail and Google Drive — invited him to lunch, where they decided to launch Sierra.
