Seattle-based startup Pokee AI has secured $12 million in seed funding to revolutionize how businesses automate online workflows. The funding round was led by Point72 Ventures and included participation from Qualcomm, Samsung Next, Salience Capital, SCB 10X, and notable angel investors like Typeface founder Abhay Parasnis and former Intel board member Lip-bu Tan.
A New Wave of AI Agents
Founded in 2024 by former Meta executive and Stanford Ph.D. Zheqing (Bill) Zhu, Pokee AI is developing general-purpose AI agents that go beyond just generating text — they act. These agents are built to plan, reason, and execute tasks across thousands of online tools and platforms, from formatting presentations to posting on social media and managing engagement.
Unlike traditional large language model-based automation tools, Pokee leverages reinforcement learning to help its agents make intelligent, step-by-step decisions. This method enables Pokee’s system to choose and sequence tools effectively, learning through trial and error to boost efficiency and accuracy.
Solving the “Execution Problem”
“We’ve solved the generation problem in AI. What no one has truly cracked is the execution problem,” said CEO Zhu. “We want to solve the execution problem.”
Pokee claims its technology achieves over 97% accuracy when selecting the right tools from a large array of options — outperforming typical function-calling approaches by offloading planning to a specialized AI agent architecture.
Practical Use Cases Already in Motion
One of Pokee’s early focus areas is social media marketing. The AI agent can automatically generate content, enhance media assets, publish posts across platforms, and track audience engagement — all with minimal human input.
Although the company is not yet generating revenue, it’s actively working with design partners and is collaborating with Google on enterprise partnerships. Pokee’s platform is currently in public beta and integrates with major platforms like Google Workspace, Meta, LinkedIn, YouTube, Jira, GitHub, Slack, Notion, and more.
Meet the Team
Zhu, who previously led applied reinforcement learning at Meta, co-founded Pokee with:
- Michael Cai, Head of Product Engineering
- Christopher Wu, Head of ML Engineering
- Yi Wan, Founding Research Scientist
The company currently has around 10 employees and is actively hiring for roles in Bellevue and the Bay Area.