Hone, started by former Cognition and OpenAI staff, raises $60M seed at a $285M valuation

Benchmark and Index Ventures co-led the round, with Elad Gil and SV Angel taking part. The $285M valuation is post-money, which implies a $225M pre-money price. CEO Moritz Stephan was chief of staff to Cognition CEO Scott Wu. Other team members come from OpenAI, Mercor, Ramp and Jane Street. Hone only launched publicly in mid-August. Hone builds long-running agents, which it calls Engines. Each one is given a business outcome, such as procurement savings or lead conversion, and works toward it over weeks or months. Cognition, which uses Hone for go-to-market work, and inference provider Modal are early customers. No revenue or performance data has been disclosed. For builders, the round shows seed investors paying well above typical seed prices for agents that own outcomes, before any revenue is public. The hard part will be proving measurable gains and safe access to sensitive systems, which buyers will require before they hand over budgets.