Sesame, the conversational AI startup building voice-first smart glasses, has secured a $250 million Series B and is inviting a select group of testers into its early iOS beta. Co-founded by former Oculus chief Brendan Iribe and Ankit Kumar, the former CTO of Ubiquity6, the company’s mission is to put a personal AI agent in lightweight eyewear you can wear all day and talk to naturally.
Rather than converting text into robotic audio, Sesame’s system generates speech directly, capturing rhythm, emotion, and the give-and-take of real conversation. The approach first caught attention in February when the company unveiled two AI voices, “Maya” and “Miles.” Within weeks, more than a million people tried the demos and logged over five million minutes of conversation. Early hands-on impressions praised the voices as natural and surprisingly fun to use.
Sesame says its upcoming glasses will deliver high-quality audio and an AI companion that can observe the world with you, providing help in the moment without pulling you out of your day. Design is a priority, too: the smart glasses are intended to look like something you’d choose to wear even without the tech inside. There’s no public ship date yet—hardware takes time—but the team’s experience gives the effort weight.
That team includes several veterans behind category-defining products: Oculus co-founder Nate Mitchell as chief product officer; former Oculus COO and Fitbit executive Hans Hartmann as COO; former Oculus engineering manager and Reality Labs director Ryan Brown; and longtime Facebook and Meta executive Angela Gayles.
Alongside the funding news, Iribe shared on X that Sesame is opening a confidential early beta of its iOS app. The app gives testers a feel for the company’s conversational AI, with capabilities to search, text, and think on your behalf. Participants are asked to keep details within official beta forums for now.
The Series B round includes Sequoia, Spark, and other undisclosed investors. With fresh capital, a stacked hardware and AI team, and growing buzz around its ultra-natural voice interface, Sesame is positioning itself to lead the next wave of hands-free, always-available AI through stylish, everyday eyewear.
