Sesame, the new AI startup founded by former Oculus executives, has raised $250 million in Series B funding to power its next big leap: wearable AI that talks, listens, and learns like a human.
Led by Brendan Iribe (Oculus co-founder) and Ankit Kumar (formerly of Ubiquity6), Sesame is building a voice-based AI assistant that lives inside sleek, lightweight smart glasses. The company says it wants to make artificial intelligence feel less like a chatbot and more like a natural conversation partner you can carry everywhere.
A Fresh Take on Conversational AI
Instead of turning text into robotic audio, Sesame’s technology generates speech that sounds emotionally expressive and rhythmically human. Early demos featuring AI voices “Maya” and “Miles” drew over a million users and five million minutes of conversation within weeks of launch.
Investors, including Sequoia and Spark Capital, describe the experience as “a genuine step forward in how humans interact with machines.”
From Headsets to Human-Centered AI
What makes Sesame stand out is its founding team, a group of hardware veterans from Oculus, Meta, and Fitbit who know how to blend advanced tech with everyday usability. The startup’s smart glasses aim to deliver “high-quality audio” and a design stylish enough to wear even without the tech features turned on.
The glasses are currently in beta testing, alongside the Sesame iOS app, which gives early users access to the company’s conversational AI engine. According to Iribe, the app can “search, text, and think,” offering a preview of what’s coming to the wearable version.
Sesame hasn’t shared a public release date yet, but its rapid momentum and the scale of its funding signal growing investor confidence in AI-driven personal assistants that go beyond screens.
For now, beta testers have been asked to keep their feedback private while the company fine-tunes its models for a public launch.
With $250 million in fresh backing and a team that helped define virtual reality, Sesame could be the company that finally makes voice-first, always-on AI a natural part of everyday life.
