H (company)

Last updated

H Company
IndustryArtificial intelligence
Founded2023
Founders
  • Charles Kantor
  • Laurent Sifre
  • Daan Wiestra
  • Karl Tuyls
  • Julien Perollat
Headquarters
Paris
,
France
Number of employees
80 (2025)
Website hcompany.ai

H Company, also known simply as H, is a French artificial intelligence startup which develops "action-oriented" artificial intelligence agents for enterprise automation and productivity. In May 2024, H Company closed a record-setting $220 million seed round, at the time the largest AI raise in Europe. [1] [2]

Contents

History

H Company was created in 2023 by French entrepreneur Charles Kantor (born November 26, 1998) and four DeepMind veterans as founding researchers: Laurent Sifre (participated in the AlphaGo research program), Daan Wiestra (founding member of Google DeepMind), Karl Tuyls (specialized in multi-agent systems), and Julien Perollat (specialized in multi-agent systems and game theory). [1]

In May 2024, the firm secured what was then the largest European AI seed round, totaling $220 million led by US investors including Eric Schmidt (former Google CEO), Amazon, and backed by Accel, Bpifrance, UiPath, Eurazeo, Xavier Niel, Yuri Milner, Bernard Arnault, Samsung and others. President Emmanuel Macron publicly congratulated the achievement on social media. [2] [3]

By August 2024 three founding researchers—Wiestra, Tuyls and Perollat—had to depart over operational disagreements. [4] In November 2024 H launched Runner H, its first agentic-API platform. [5] [6] In June 2025 the company unveiled three new agentic models. [7] [8] Later that month, founder-CEO Charles Kantor stepped down, [9] succeeded by Gautier Cloix. aiming to pivot H Company toward an "agentic services" model.[ citation needed ] In July 2025, H Company introduced Surfer-H-CLI, an open-source, web-native Chrome agent designed for browser-based automation—able to search, scroll, click, and type on behalf of users and controllable via any visual language model (VLM). When paired with its June 2025 open-sourced 3B-parameter Holo-1 model, Surfer-H-CLI achieved 92.2% WebVoyager benchmark accuracy. [10]

Products

Activity

H Company is building the next generation of enterprise software powered by AI agents that observe, decide, and act. H products are autonomous by design, turning high-level goals into real execution across complex workflows. H Company aims to develop AI agents and "action-oriented" AI models to automate complex tasks and enhance productivity in various sectors. [1]

References

  1. 1 2 3 Dillet, Romain (21 May 2024). "French AI startup H raises $220 million seed round". TechCrunch. Retrieved 27 July 2025.
  2. 1 2 Deutscher, Maria (21 May 2024). "H, a new Paris-based AI startup, raises $220 M from prominent investors". SiliconANGLE. Retrieved 27 July 2025.
  3. ↑ "Emmanuel Macron congratulates H Company's record funding round". X (formerly Twitter). 21 May 2024. Retrieved 27 July 2025.
  4. ↑ "H, start-up française d'IA, voit trois de ses fondateurs partir après une levée de fonds record". Usine Digitale (in French). 27 August 2024. Retrieved 27 July 2025.
  5. ↑ Lunden, Ingrid (20 November 2024). "H, the AI startup that raised $220 M, launches Runner H for "agentic" applications". TechCrunch. Retrieved 27 July 2025.
  6. ↑ "H: why this French startup is creating a buzz in autonomous AI". Yahoo News UK. 25 November 2024. Retrieved 27 July 2025.
  7. ↑ "France's H Company releases 3 new agentic models it hopes will be the heart of all AI". Euronews. 3 June 2025. Retrieved 27 July 2025.
  8. ↑ Polge, Benjamin (3 June 2025). "IA : le Français H entre directement dans la cour des grands". Journal du Net (in French). Retrieved 27 July 2025.
  9. ↑ Leprince-Ringuet, Daphné (4 July 2025). "Revealed: How H Company CEO went from raising $220m to stepping down just one year later". Sifted. Retrieved 27 July 2025.
  10. ↑ "H Company launches Surfer-H-CLI: an open-source Chrome agent for web automation". H Company Blog. July 2025. Retrieved 27 July 2025.
  11. ↑ "H Company launches next-generation autonomous AI agents for enterprise and consumer markets". Business Wire. 3 June 2025. Retrieved 27 July 2025.
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