Sierra, the artificial intelligence startup co-founded by OpenAI chairman and former Salesforce co-CEO Bret Taylor, is close to signing one of San Francisco’s biggest office leases this year.
The company has agreed to lease 300,000 square feet at 185 Berry St. in South Beach, said a person with direct knowledge of the deal who wasn’t authorized to speak publicly. Sierra builds customer service AI agents and was recently valued at $10 billion.
Founded in 2023 by Taylor and Clay Bavor, former head of Google Labs, the startup would lease under the pending deal more than three times the office space it currently occupies. Sierra leases around 80,000 square feet at 235 Second St.
“Sierra has grown tremendously and this is a reflection of our growth and leadership,” a Sierra spokesperson said. The company has hundreds of employees and plans to triple its headcount.
A broker for 185 Berry St. landlords McCarthy Cook & Co. and JPMorgan Chase declined to comment.
The two-building complex, known as China Basin, is also home to the headquarters of Lyft, which renewed its lease there last year but cut its space by more than half.
If the pending deal closes, Sierra would become one of the biggest tech tenants in the city and join AI giants OpenAI and Anthropic in signing six-figure office leases.
Taylor and Bavor said in September that the company has hundreds of customers and raised an additional $350 million. It previously raised $175 million in October 2024.
The startup’s focus on agents makes it a direct competitor to Taylor’s previous employer, Salesforce. Taylor was also chairman of Twitter, now X, before Elon Musk bought the social media company in 2022.
Sierra’s deal would be the biggest new lease in San Francisco since OpenAI’s 315,000-square-foot expansion in Mission Bay last year. Google also renewed its 405,000-square-foot lease at 345 Spear St. at the beginning of the year.