Paris Startup H Announces Runner H, an Agentic AI Product Aimed at Businesses and Developers

Paris-based startup H, founded by ex-Google employees, has announced its latest product, Runner H, an 'agentic' AI designed for use in business and developer tasks such as quality assurance and process automation. The company had previously made headlines by securing a seed round of $220 million, even before launching any products.

Despite facing a setback when three of its five co-founders departed due to operational and business disputes, H has continued to forge ahead. The startup has initiated a waitlist for Runner H and is set to release APIs for users to access pre-built agents and create their own. H has also revealed plans to introduce a payment model in the future. Furthermore, the company is raising a Series A round to support its endeavors in the AI sector.

The startup claims to have quietly collaborated with e-commerce, banking, insurance, and outsourcing clients to refine its product based on customer feedback. Runner H will initially concentrate on three specific use cases: robotic process automation (RPA), quality assurance, and business process outsourcing (BPO). Notably, H's compact models are intended to be more cost-efficient, with just 2 billion parameters, compared to the higher number of parameters in other AI offerings. It asserts that its compact models outperform competitors, delivering a 29% performance improvement based on WebVoyager benchmarks.