Browser Use, a startup focused on creating "agentic" tools to automate various tasks online, has secured a substantial $17 million seed funding round led by Felicis' Astasia Myers, with participation from Paul Graham, A Capital, and Nexus Venture Partners. This investment marks a significant milestone for the company, which has gained considerable attention from developers and investors alike.

The startup, part of Y Combinator's 2025 winter batch, has been making waves in recent months, particularly after Chinese startup Butterfly Effect's use of Browser Use in its viral Manus tool brought the company into the spotlight. Founded by Magnus Müller and Gregor Zunic last year through ETH Zurich's Student Project House accelerator, Browser Use aims to make websites more "readable" for AI agents, enabling them to interact with websites more efficiently.

Müller and Zunic, who met while pursuing their master's degrees in data science, combined their expertise in web scraping and data science to develop a solution that prompts a browser to perform tasks autonomously. They built a demo of Browser Use in just five weeks, which subsequently took off, leading them to open-source it. The tool essentially breaks down website elements into a more digestible, "text-like" format, allowing AI agents to understand options and make decisions independently.

According to Müller, many AI companies struggle with agents navigating websites, often relying on vision-based systems that can break when interacting with websites. Browser Use's approach, on the other hand, converts websites into a format that agents can understand, enabling tasks to be performed repeatedly at a lower cost. Müller believes that Browser Use can become a "fundamental layer" serving the growing need for AI agents to interact with websites more seamlessly.

Felicis' Astasia Myers, who led the funding round, has been actively tracking the AI agents space for several years and sees Browser Use as the right opportunity to expand the firm's portfolio. Myers praised the founding team's open-source-first approach, which sealed the deal for Felicis. "We think web AI agents are the next frontier that really helps with the end-to-end automation of human tasks," Myers said, highlighting the potential of Browser Use's solution.

With over 20 companies in the current Y Combinator Winter batch already using Browser Use for their own requirements, the startup's solution is gaining traction. As Müller noted, companies are approaching Browser Use to make their websites more agent-friendly, particularly with sites like LinkedIn, which frequently change their website structure, causing agents to fail.

The successful funding round and growing interest in Browser Use's solution underscore the increasing importance of AI agents in automating tasks online. As the space continues to evolve, Browser Use is well-positioned to play a significant role in shaping the future of web AI agents and their interaction with websites.