Sierra Acquires Takeoff to Build 'Long-Horizon' AI Agents

The CODEW | Tech M&A Watch

The 14-month-old startup was nearing $10 million in annualized revenue with a three-person team before agreeing to join Sierra.

Sierra, the AI agent company led by former Salesforce CTO Bret Taylor, has acquired Takeoff, a young startup building what it calls "long-horizon" AI agents — systems designed to reason, make decisions, and act over extended periods rather than respond to single queries. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

The acquisition was announced Thursday, July 23, not through a formal press release but via posts on X from Taylor and Takeoff founder Aakash Thumaty. Taylor said he and Sierra co-founder Clay Bavor, the former Google executive who led its AR/VR efforts, were "incredibly excited" to welcome Thumaty and the rest of the Takeoff team into Sierra.

From zero to eight figures in 14 months

Takeoff was founded just over a year ago and, according to Thumaty, grew to nearly $10 million in annualized revenue by early July — with a team of only three people. The startup built an "agent runtime" meant to let AI systems handle complex, multi-step assignments that unfold over hours or days, rather than the single-turn interactions most commercial chat assistants are built for. Its agents have reportedly been tested against existing processes in five industries, including lending and healthcare.

That trajectory could have supported another venture funding round. Instead, Thumaty said Takeoff chose to combine forces with Sierra, citing the chance to scale faster using Sierra's resources, customer base, and enterprise reach. "Agents that operate like humans but scale like software" is how Thumaty described the underlying thesis, arguing that the next wave of valuable AI companies will be defined by delivering business outcomes rather than just providing access to models.

A new platform called Horizon

Sierra and Takeoff plan to combine their technology under a new platform named Horizon, focused on building and deploying long-horizon agents for enterprise customers. Takeoff said it will continue serving its existing customers while expanding distribution through Sierra's platform.

Details beyond the founders' social media statements remain limited: no valuation, deal structure, or integration timeline has been made public, and neither company has confirmed the size of the Takeoff team taking part in the move.

Part of a broader wave of agent consolidation

The deal is the latest sign of consolidation in the nascent market for autonomous AI agents, as more established players move to acquire specialized startups rather than build long-horizon capabilities from scratch. Sierra, co-founded by Taylor — previously known for FriendFeed, Facebook's Open Graph platform, and Salesforce's integration of Slack — has positioned itself as a leader in enterprise-facing AI agents, and the Takeoff acquisition extends that bet into agents capable of sustained, autonomous operation across complex workflows.

Sources: RuntimeWire, Benzinga

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Tech M&A Watch is The CODEW's flagship editorial series covering mergers, acquisitions, venture funding, IPOs, and strategic partnerships across the technology industry. It analyzes how these deals reshape enterprise software, AI, cloud computing, cybersecurity, and the broader technology market, focusing on their business and competitive impact rather than simply reporting the transactions.