Vibe-working with autonomous artificial intelligence agents startup Tess AI revealed today that it has raised $5 million in funding to support the continued development and expansion of its enterprise agent orchestration platform and its seatless, pay-for-impact operating model.

Founded in California as Tess Tecnologia Ltda. by Brazilian entrepreneurs, Tess AI is developing an enterprise software platform that is designed to replace seat-based software usage with autonomous AI agents that execute operational tasks.

The company addresses the challenge organizations face when AI is deployed primarily as chat interfaces rather than as integrated workflow systems, with an architectural approach that centers on agent orchestration that allows multiple AI models to collaborate within structured execution environments. The platform is structured around monetizing completed work performed by agents instead of licensing software per user.

Tess AI’s platform operates through a multi-model orchestration engine that integrates more than 200 AI models into a compound intelligence framework. Agents are created within a shared workspace environment and can execute dynamic interaction loops, expanded memory operations and concurrent processes.

According to the company, a single agent call can support up to 40 simultaneous operations, with the system coordinating model selection, context management and workflow execution across integrated tools and enterprise data sources.

The agents, which can be created, deployed and shared by employees, can perform tasks such as bank reconciliation, inventory verification, prospecting, data analysis and internal reporting without continuous human input. A complementary workspace model allows the agents to be reused across departments and task execution is tracked as completed operational output rather than seat utilization.

The seed funding round was led by Hi Ventures and DYDX Capital, with Honeystone Ventures also participating.

“We are witnessing a silent revolution happening from the bottom up in organizations. While the giants try to push AI in top-down projects, which often generate waves of layoffs, Tess AI is winning because it’s the employees themselves who create and implement the agents,” said Federico Antoni, co-lead at Hi Ventures. “This allows for real AI transformation in the company, precisely because the fear of losing one’s job is taken out of the equation.”

Image: Tess AI