Parag Agrawal, the former CEO of Twitter, has taken his AI startup Parallel Web Systems to a major milestone, raising $100 million in fresh funding and reaching a $2 billion valuation, according to a report by The Wall Street Journal.
According to WSJ, the latest Series B round led by Sequoia Capital saw participation from existing investors, including Kleiner Perkins, Index Ventures, and Khosla Ventures. With this, the company’s total funding has climbed to $230 million.
From Twitter CEO to AI builder
Parag Agrawal led Twitter as CEO until 2022, when he was removed after Elon Musk acquired the company. Before that, he served as Twitter’s chief technology officer. Now, he is betting big on AI systems that can independently navigate the internet.
Speaking to The Wall Street Journal, Agrawal said, “Every few weeks, we solve one bottleneck and hit another somewhere,” Agrawal said. “We’re building some things I’m really excited about. I wouldn’t work here if I wasn’t.”
The latest funding follows a $100 million Series A round the startup closed last November, when it was valued at $740 million, Reuters reported.
Investors see scope in the ‘Autonomous AI’ space
Sequoia Capital partner Andrew Reed, who is joining Parallel’s board, said the rise of “long-horizon” AI agents is gathering strong investor interest. The best thing about these systems is that they can run independently for longer periods while still completing detailed tasks. He also added that such AI systems are quickly becoming more common in enterprise settings.
Parallel Web claims more than 100,000 developers are already using its platform, including AI-native startups and enterprise clients.
With the new capital, Agrawal told WSJ, the company will expand its sales and marketing teams and invest more in research and development. The startup, which currently has around 50 employees, is also focusing on enterprise customers as demand grows.
What is Parallel Web all about
Parallel Web Systems is building tools for a new kind of internet usage, where AI systems, or “agents,” search and use the web on their own instead of waiting for humans to do it. These agents are designed to carry out tasks such as research, analysis, and data gathering without constant human input.
The startup says its technology is already being used for complex, research-heavy work that usually takes a lot of time for humans. This includes investment research, insurance processing, legal analysis, and reviewing large sets of government or public documents. With Parallel Web, instead of manually searching the web, AI agents can scan, collect, and process information at a much faster pace and scale.
Speaking to The Wall Street Journal, Agrawal said, “The bet I made in 2023 was that agents will use the web a lot more than humans,” he said, explaining the push to build infrastructure specifically for AI-driven search.