Strawberry, a startup with $6 million in funding from EQT and General Catalyst, has launched 1.0 of its AI agent platform built for non-technical teams, such as sales, recruiting, customer support and marketing.

It is free to try and lets users and teams create their own virtual colleagues, called AI companions. According to Strawberry, unlike chatbots such as Claude and ChatGPT, which take a prompt and complete a task, companions work like real colleagues, alongside people and not instead of them. It operates as a browser, where a team's context, workflows and logins already live. A companion remembers how your team works and gets better the more you work together, because it is connected to all of that context.

"The technology is already here: agents can now work for weeks in a row. Yet, we see so many companies struggle with adoption. We built a product so delightful that teams adopt it naturally, with companions you bring into your team like colleagues," says Charles Maddock, CEO and Co-founder at Strawberry.

"Today the person who is great with Claude keeps all of it on their own laptop. In Strawberry you train a companion once, and everyone on the team gets it, with everything it has learned. The browser is fast becoming the front line for AI, and the Strawberry team is at the centre of that shift," says Yuri Sagalov, Partner, General Catalyst.

The Stockholm, Sweden-based company plans to follow this launch with a Series A funding round.

2026 RTIH Innovation Awards

AI will be a key focus area at the 2026 RTIH Innovation Awards.

The awards, which celebrate global retail technology innovation in a fast moving omnichannel world, have now closed for entries. Our winners will be revealed at the 2026 RTIH Innovation Awards Ceremony, taking place at The HAC in Central London on Wednesday, 4th November.

Check out our 2026 shortlists and finalists here.

We received a record number of entries this year and many fantastic examples of technology excellence driving transformative change across the global retail sector.

Congratulations to all those who made it through the initial submission process! It’s now over to our star studded judging panel who will decide the winners to be announced at the 2026 RTIH Innovation Awards Ceremony, taking place at The HAC in Central London. 

The event will be held on Wednesday, 4th November and consist of a drinks reception, three course meal, awards ceremony presided over by award winning stand-up comedian, presenter, actor and broadcaster, Aurie Styla, and after party until 1am.

Click here to book your place at the 2026 RTIH Innovation Awards Ceremony on Wednesday, 4th November.