With backing from Sequoia and Spark, Sesame blends expressive conversational AI with fashion-forward eyewear in pursuit of the ultimate personal assistant.
A New Era of AI-Powered Wearables
Sesame, the ambitious conversational AI startup from Oculus co-founder Brendan Iribe, has raised a $250 million Series B and opened its iOS app beta to early testers, marking a major milestone in its quest to create a voice-first AI companion.
Co-founded by Iribe and Ankit Kumar (former CTO of AR startup Ubiquity6), Sesame is developing a natural-sounding personal AI agent housed in lightweight, fashion-forward smart glasses—designed for everyday wear and interaction.
More Than Just a Talking LLM
What sets Sesame apart is how it approaches conversational AI. Rather than merely translating LLM (large language model) outputs into robotic voice clips, Sesame’s technology generates speech directly, preserving rhythm, tone, and emotional expression.
“It doesn’t just translate LLM output into audio — it generates speech directly, capturing the rhythm, emotion, and expressiveness of real dialogue,” wrote investor Sequoia in a blog post celebrating the round.
Earlier this year, Sesame released demos featuring AI voices named Maya and Miles, which quickly went viral—1 million+ users generated over 5 million minutes of conversation within weeks.
The Smart Glasses Vision
The upcoming Sesame smart glasses will include:
- High-quality audio
- Access to an AI that “observes the world alongside you”
- Voice-first controls for searching, texting, and thinking
- A design that’s fashionable enough to wear even without AI features
“Hardware takes time,” Sequoia cautions, but Sesame’s deep Oculus DNA gives it a significant head start.
A Rockstar Founding Team
In addition to Iribe and Kumar, Sesame’s founding team includes several Oculus veterans and hardware veterans:
- Nate Mitchell, Oculus co-founder – Chief Product Officer
- Hans Hartmann, former Oculus COO & Fitbit exec – COO
- Ryan Brown, former Reality Labs director – Engineering
- Angela Gayles, former Meta exec – Operations & Strategy
Their collective expertise in consumer hardware, AR/VR, and AI infrastructure positions Sesame to deliver a high-quality, well-integrated product—bridging the gap between wearable tech and real-time AI.
Beta Launch: iOS App First
While the smart glasses aren’t publicly available yet, Sesame is launching an early beta of its iOS app. The app gives testers early access to the AI interaction layer, described by Iribe as being able to “search, text, and think.”
Participation in the beta is under strict confidentiality, with testers barred from discussing features or results publicly.
The app serves as a preview of the AI engine that will eventually power the glasses, giving Sesame valuable feedback ahead of a full hardware rollout.
Who’s Backing It?
The $250M Series B is led by Sequoia and Spark Capital, with other investors undisclosed. Sesame previously emerged from stealth in February and has since generated intense interest across both the AI and hardware investor ecosystems.
