function-calling
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Pokee AI
Pokee AI is a Bellevue-based startup building foundation AI agents that plan, reason, and act across thousands of internet tools. Founded in 2024 by former Meta applied-reinforcement-learning lead Zheqing (Bill) Zhu, the company uses reinforcement learning rather than pure LLM function-calling to sequence tool use reliably, claiming its foundation model outperforms GPT-4o, Claude 3.7, and Gemini 2.5 Pro on tool selection. Pokee raised a $12M seed round in 2025 led by Point72 Ventures, ships an enterprise platform with private/on-prem deployment, and open-sourced PokeeResearch-7B, a state-of-the-art small deep-research agent.
Zheqing (Bill) Zhu
Zheqing (Bill) Zhu is the founder and CEO of Pokee AI, a Bellevue, Washington startup building foundation AI agents that plan, reason, and use thousands of tools to execute real online workflows. A Stanford PhD in reinforcement learning, he previously led the Applied Reinforcement Learning team at Meta AI, where he shipped the open-source Pearl platform and RL systems credited with over $500M in annual revenue impact. In 2025 Pokee AI raised a $12M seed round, 3x oversubscribed, led by Point72 Ventures with backing from Qualcomm Ventures, Samsung NEXT, and angels including Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan.