On Thursday, Dust, a French AI startup co-founded by former OpenAI researcher Stanislas Polu, secured a $16 million investment led by Sequoia Capital.

What Happened: Dust, which specializes in creating customized AI bots for businesses, plans to use the new funding to expand its operations into the U.S. market, as per a press release. The company’s software integrates with AI offerings from tech giants like OpenAI, Alphabet Inc., Anthropic, and Microsoft-backed Mistral AI, enhancing apps such as Slack with AI capabilities.

Polu, who envisioned the potential of generative AI applications even before the release of ChatGPT in 2022, believes Dust’s products can help businesses maximize the value of AI technology. The company has already reported over 5,000 active users and $1 million in annual recurring revenue this month.

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Sequoia Capital’s investment in Dust marks another significant venture capital infusion into France’s AI sector, following Mistral’s recent funding round that valued the company at $6 billion.

Why It Matters: Dust’s funding comes amid a surge in AI-driven market trends. In March, Gene Munster highlighted the efficiency of AI applications, citing the success of Klarna’s AI chatbot, which handled over two-thirds of its customer service chats in just one month, effectively doing the work of 700 full-time agents and boosting profits by $40 million.

Additionally, OpenAI co-founder Ilya Sutskever launched a new AI venture, Safe Superintelligence Inc., just a couple of days before Dust’s funding announcement.

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This story was generated using Benzinga Neuro and edited by Pooja Rajkumari