H (company)

Last updated

H Company
Company type Private
Industry Artificial intelligence
Founded2023
Founders
  • Laurent Sifre
  • Charles Kantor
  • Daan Wiestra
  • Karl Tuyls
  • Julien Perollat
Headquarters
Paris
,
France
Key people
Gautier Cloix (President, CEO)
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 founded in 2023 in Paris by Laurent Sifre, Charles Kantor, and three DeepMind veterans: Daan Wiestra, Karl Tuyls, Julien Perollat. [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. [1] [2] In August 2024, three cofounders (Wiestra, Tuyls, Perollat) left the company over operational disagreements. [3]

In November 2024, H launched Runner H, its first agentic-API platform, which combined a large language model (LLM) and a reduced, 2-billion parameter vision-language model (VLM). [4] [5] In May 2025, H Company acquired Mithril Security, [6] and in June 2025 the company widened its offering for agentic models. [7] In June 2025, Gautier Cloix (formerly CEO Palantir France) replaced Charles Kantor as CEO of H Company, [8] [9] aiming to pivot the company towards a "forward deployed engineers" model. [10] 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. [11]

Activity

H Company creates enterprise AI models and agents (agentic AI) to automate and optimize complex workflows. [1] H Company specifically designs AI agents called computer use capable of autonomously interfacing with any software (local or cloud-based) to detect and automate repetitive operations. [10]

H Company is based in Paris, France, with international offices in London and New York. H Company raised $220 million since its inception. [1] Gautier Cloix is President and CEO of the company. [9] H Company client include the French national lottery FDJ United. [12]

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 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. ↑ Bergen, Mark (23 August 2024). "Billionaire-backed French AI startup H loses most c-founders months after forming". Bloomberg. Retrieved 8 January 2026.
  4. ↑ Lunden, Ingrid (20 November 2024). "H, the AI startup that raised $220 M, launches Runner H for "agentic" applications". TechCrunch. Retrieved 27 July 2025.
  5. ↑ "H: why this French startup is creating a buzz in autonomous AI". Yahoo News UK. 25 November 2024. Retrieved 27 July 2025.
  6. ↑ "Exclusive: H Company quietly acquires open-source AI agents startup". Sifted. Retrieved 8 January 2026.
  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. ↑ 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.
  9. 1 2 Berthelot, Benoit (12 June 2025). "French AI Startup H Replaces CEO With Former Palantir Executive". Bloomberg. Retrieved 8 January 2026.
  10. 1 2 "Gautier Cloix will bring Palantir's 'secret sauce' to H Company after cofounder exodus". Sifted. Retrieved 8 January 2026.
  11. ↑ "H Company launches Surfer-H-CLI: an open-source Chrome agent for web automation". H Company Blog. July 2025. Retrieved 27 July 2025.
  12. ↑ G, Jake (18 November 2025). "FDJ UNITED Bets on AI with a Partnership with H Company". iGaming Chronicle (in French). Retrieved 8 January 2026.
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