HomeArcade raises $12M from Perplexity co-founder’s new fund to make AI agents less awful
Arcade, a startup specializing in AI agent infrastructure, has secured a $12 million investment from Laude Ventures. Founded by Alex Salazar, a former executive at Okta, and Sam Partee, an ex-engineer from Redis, Arcade was established in February 2024 with a mission to revolutionize AI agent technology.
Laude Ventures, launched in 2024 by Andy Konwinski, co-founder of Perplexity and a UC Berkeley computer scientist known for co-founding Databricks, is behind this investment. This marks Laude's first publicly announced investment, according to Pete Sonsini, co-founder and general partner at Laude. Sonsini, previously at NEA, is recognized for leading early investments in companies like Databricks, Anyscale, and Perplexity.
Alex Salazar, a seasoned entrepreneur, joined Okta following the acquisition of his authentication API startup, Stormpath, in 2017. At Okta, he served as a VP, focusing on product development. Meanwhile, Sam Partee has been actively involved in developing LLM-based applications and contributing to significant open-source projects such as LangChain and LlamaIndex.
The inception of Arcade was inspired by the launch of ChatGPT 3.5, which sparked Salazar's vision for an AI agent company. However, early attempts at building a site reliability agent revealed significant challenges. Salazar admitted, "Most agents suck. They don’t do much." The main issue was the inability of these agents to access private data, limiting their functionality.
Realizing the limitations of their initial approach, Salazar and Partee pivoted. Instead of focusing on the agent itself, they developed a tool-calling platform that enhances agent capabilities. This platform, akin to what Okta did for SaaS cloud services, enables agents to interact with various applications and data with the same access rights as their human counterparts. Arcade offers this service through usage-based pricing or subscriptions and integrates with OAuth for managing authentication across thousands of SaaS services and websites. It also ensures secure token management, preventing LLMs from directly accessing sensitive credentials.
When Pete Sonsini learned of Salazar's new venture, he was keen to invest, valuing the technical prowess of the founders and the potential of Arcade to build a billion-dollar infrastructure business. Sonsini emphasized that while many AI startups chase the allure of LLMs and agents, Arcade's focus on foundational infrastructure aligns with his investment philosophy.
Arcade's journey reflects a strategic shift from building AI agents to providing essential tools that empower these agents, setting the stage for significant advancements in AI technology.
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Comments (40)
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![AnthonyGonzalez]()
This is wild! $12M to make AI agents less clunky? I'm all for it—those bots can be such a headache sometimes. Curious to see how Arcade's platform changes the game! 😎
![JustinScott]()
This is wild! $12M to make AI agents less awful? Arcade’s onto something big here. I’m curious if they’ll actually solve the clunky AI issues or just make fancier chatbots. 🤔 Fingers crossed for real innovation!
![AlbertGarcía]()
This sounds like a game-changer! $12M to make AI agents less clunky? Count me in! Curious to see how Arcade’s tech will stack up against the big players. 🚀
![JuanAllen]()
This is super cool! Arcade’s focus on making AI agents actually useful is a game-changer. $12M from Laude Ventures? That’s some serious cash to fix those clunky bots. Can’t wait to see how they integrate with SaaS platforms! 😎
![DavidThomas]()
This AI agent stuff sounds cool, but $12M? Hope they make those bots less creepy and more useful! 😅
![NicholasYoung]()
ArcadeのAIエージェントの革新は面白いですね。でも1200万ドルは大金！賢く使ってほしいです。AIエージェントがもっと使いやすくなることを期待しています！🤞💸
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This is wild! $12M to make AI agents less clunky? I'm all for it—those bots can be such a headache sometimes. Curious to see how Arcade's platform changes the game! 😎
This is wild! $12M to make AI agents less awful? Arcade’s onto something big here. I’m curious if they’ll actually solve the clunky AI issues or just make fancier chatbots. 🤔 Fingers crossed for real innovation!
This sounds like a game-changer! $12M to make AI agents less clunky? Count me in! Curious to see how Arcade’s tech will stack up against the big players. 🚀
This is super cool! Arcade’s focus on making AI agents actually useful is a game-changer. $12M from Laude Ventures? That’s some serious cash to fix those clunky bots. Can’t wait to see how they integrate with SaaS platforms! 😎
This AI agent stuff sounds cool, but $12M? Hope they make those bots less creepy and more useful! 😅
ArcadeのAIエージェントの革新は面白いですね。でも1200万ドルは大金！賢く使ってほしいです。AIエージェントがもっと使いやすくなることを期待しています！🤞💸
