Hone, founded by OpenAI and Cognition alumni, raises $60 million in seed funding for agents driving business goals

Benchmark and Index Ventures value this start-up at $285 million, whose "Engines" take charge of a business objective for weeks or even months.

Californian start-up Hone has raised $60 million in a seed round led by Benchmark and Index Ventures, which values it at $285 million according to Bloomberg. It is led by Austrian Moritz Stephan, former chief of staff to Cognition boss Scott Wu, associated with Oliver Brady (who has worked for Harvey and Mercor) and Carlo Kobe. Peter Fenton (Benchmark) and Shardul Shah (Index) join the board of directors; Elad Gil, SV Angel and Scott Wu in their personal capacity have also invested.

Agents judged on the income statement

Hone does not sell an assistant that performs a one-off task, but persistent agents called "Engines", to whom a company entrusts an open objective: to retain customers, reduce purchasing costs, better convert prospects. The agent learns the internal tools and processes, chooses the steps himself and calls on a human if necessary. To limit the risks, his decisions are first simulated, sensitive actions require human validation and everything is logged.

Cognition and infrastructure company Modal are among the first customers. Hone did not publish any revenue or measured results, however, in a market already contested by Sierra, Decagon and Salesforce's Agentforce.