H (company)

Last updated

H Company
IndustryArtificial intelligence
Founded2023 (age)
Founders• Charles Kantor • Laurent Sifre • Daan Wiestra • Karl Tuyls • Julien Perollat
Headquarters
Paris
,
France
Key people
• Charles Kantor (Founder and former CEO) • Laurent Sifre (CTO)
Number of employees
80 (2025)
Website company.ai

H Company, also known simply as H, is a French artificial intelligence startup founded in 2023 by Charles Kantor, dubbed "the French Sam Altman" by Le Point. [1] The company develops "action-oriented" artificial intelligence agents for enterprise automation and productivity. According to Kantor in Forbes France, "we create AI agents capable of acting, not just responding." [2] In May 2024, under Kantor's leadership, H Company closed a record-setting $220 million Series B—at the time the largest AI raise in Europe [3] —drawing attention from major US tech media including TechCrunch and SiliconANGLE. [4] This landmark fundraise was publicly congratulated by President Emmanuel Macron on social media. [5]

Contents

History

Charles Kantor, dubbed "the French Sam Altman" by Le Point Charles Kantor French Sam Altman Le Point.png
Charles Kantor, dubbed "the French Sam Altman" by Le Point

H Company was created by Charles Kantor in 2023, after gathering four DeepMind veterans as founding researchers—Laurent Sifre who participated in the AlphaGo research program (now H CTO), Daan Wiestra, a founding member of Google DeepMind, Karl Tuyls, a specialist in multi-agent systems, and Julien Perollat, also specialized in multi-agent systems and game theory. [3]

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. [5] Crowdfund Insider said the raise would "simplify AI utilisation" for enterprise clients, [6] while La Tribune called it a record "levée de fonds qui défie Mistral et OpenAI", [7] SiliconANGLE highlighted the breadth of backers, [4] and Tech Funding News stressed H's focus on "action-oriented AI". [8]

By August 2024 three founding researchers—Wiestra, Tuyls and Perollat—had to depart over operational disagreements. [9]

In November 2024 H launched Runner H, its first agentic-API platform. The debut was applauded by TechCrunch, [10] Yahoo News, [11] Usine Digitale, [12] and Le Figaro, [13] and summarised as making "agentic AI a reality". [14]

In June 2025 the company unveiled three new agentic models—called the future core of its ecosystem by Euronews [15] and "next-generation autonomous AI agents" by Business Wire. [16] Forbes France wrote that the agents "act autonomously, not merely respond", [17] Journal du Net said H had entered "the big league of AI", [18] and Le Point argued Europe could "become a leader in agentic AI". [1]

Later that month, founder-CEO Charles Kantor stepped down amid a strategic clash over his fully funded, billion-dollar in-house AI infrastructure project for H, as detailed in a Sifted profile. [19] He was succeeded by former Palantir France delegate director Gautier Cloix to pivot H Company toward an "agentic services" model. Kantor remains principal shareholder.[ 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. [20]

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.

References

  1. 1 2 Grallet, Guillaume (7 June 2025). "L'Europe peut devenir le leader sur l'IA agentique, estime Charles Kantor - "le Sam Altman français"". Le Point. Retrieved 27 July 2025.
  2. ↑ Kantor (14 May 2024). "Charles Kantor (H Company): "Nous créons des agents IA capables d'agir, pas seulement de répondre"". Forbes France. Retrieved 21 July 2025.
  3. 1 2 Dillet, Romain (21 May 2024). "French AI startup H raises $220 million seed round". TechCrunch. Retrieved 27 July 2025.
  4. 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.
  5. 1 2 "Emmanuel Macron congratulates H Company's record funding round". X (formerly Twitter). 21 May 2024. Retrieved 27 July 2025.
  6. ↑ Alois, JD (22 May 2024). "France: H Company Raises $220 Million to Fund Agentic AI Firm". Crowdfund Insider. Retrieved 27 July 2025.
  7. ↑ Protais, Marine (21 May 2024). "Levée de fonds record pour "H", la start-up française d'IA qui défie Mistral et OpenAI". La Tribune (in French). Retrieved 27 July 2025.
  8. ↑ Chhetri, Vivek (22 May 2024). "French company H raises $220 M to develop "Action-Oriented" AI". Tech Funding News. Retrieved 27 July 2025.
  9. ↑ "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.
  10. ↑ Lunden, Ingrid (20 November 2024). "H, the AI startup that raised $220 M, launches Runner H for "agentic" applications". TechCrunch. Retrieved 27 July 2025.
  11. ↑ "H: why this French startup is creating a buzz in autonomous AI". Yahoo News UK. 25 November 2024. Retrieved 27 July 2025.
  12. ↑ "La start-up H passe un cap avec son agent IA Runner H dédié à l'automatisation". Usine Digitale (in French). Retrieved 27 July 2025.
  13. ↑ "IA : la start-up française H lance son premier outil". Le Figaro (in French). 19 November 2024. Retrieved 27 July 2025.
  14. ↑ "H Company makes agentic AI a reality with Runner H". PR Newswire. 3 June 2025. Retrieved 27 July 2025.
  15. ↑ "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.
  16. 1 2 "H Company launches next-generation autonomous AI agents for enterprise and consumer markets". Business Wire. 3 June 2025. Retrieved 27 July 2025.
  17. ↑ "H Company : des agents IA autonomes qui passent à l'action". Forbes France. 4 June 2025. Retrieved 27 July 2025.
  18. ↑ 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.
  19. ↑ 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.
  20. ↑ "H Company launches Surfer-H-CLI: an open-source Chrome agent for web automation". H Company Blog. July 2025. Retrieved 27 July 2025.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.