# Browser Use Raises $17M Seed to Scale Open-Source AI Web Agents

**Author:** Zero G Talent
**Published:** 2026-11-09
**Category:** software
**Tags:** yc-hiring, browser automation, web agents, open source, software engineering, infrastructure

[Read on Zero G Talent](https://zerogtalent.com/blog/browser-use-raises-17m-seed-to-scale-open-source-ai-web-agents)

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[Browser Use](https://zerogtalent.com/ai-companies/browser-use) has raised a $17 million seed funding round to expand its open-source browser automation framework and cloud infrastructure. The round was led by Felicis Ventures, with participation from Y Combinator, A Capital, Nexus Venture Partners, Liquid2, SV Angel, Pioneer Fund, and Paul Graham, as reported by [TechCrunch](https://techcrunch.com/2025/03/23/browser-use-the-tool-making-it-easier-for-ai-agents-to-navigate-websites-raises-17m/).

The San Francisco-based company builds tools that make website interfaces accessible to autonomous language model agents. Instead of relying purely on computer vision or pixel analysis, [Browser Use](https://zerogtalent.com/ai-companies/browser-use) converts web page elements into structured text formats that large language models can parse deterministically. The open-source project passed 50,000 GitHub stars within months of release and was adopted by platforms like Butterfly Effect's Manus tool, alongside more than 20 startups in Y Combinator's W25 batch.

## Building Infrastructure for Web Automation

[Browser Use](https://zerogtalent.com/ai-companies/browser-use) was founded in 2024 by CEO [Magnus Müller](https://zerogtalent.com/people/magnus-m-ller) and CTO [Gregor Zunic](https://zerogtalent.com/people/gregor-zunic), who met while completing master's degrees in Data Science at ETH Zurich. The duo launched a four-day prototype on Hacker News after experimenting with web scraping and language model action loops.

In an interview on [TwoSetAI and Browser Use](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-L3CQClT4MY), [Magnus Müller](https://zerogtalent.com/people/magnus-m-ller) described the startup's early setup in Zurich: "When we were starting Browser Use we were living in a co-working space. We were showering in a gym... sleeping there on the couch day and night." The team later joined Y Combinator's W25 batch and relocated to San Francisco.

As detailed by [InfoWorld](https://www.infoworld.com/article/3812644/browser-use-an-open-source-ai-agent-to-automate-web-based-tasks.html), the library integrates with Microsoft Playwright and Chromium CDP to manage dynamic elements, cookies, and multi-step browser actions. It supports model backends including OpenAI, Anthropic Claude, Google Gemini, DeepSeek, and local setups running on Ollama.

[Quasa.io](https://quasa.io/video/browser-use-ai-browser-automation-hosted-agents-cloud-browser-infrastructure) noted that [Browser Use](https://zerogtalent.com/ai-companies/browser-use) maintains an MIT-licensed core library alongside hosted cloud services. Managed cloud Chromium instances are priced at $0.02 per hour, with hosted agent services adding a 20 percent service fee to model charges.

## Engineering Roles at the Hacker House

[Browser Use](https://zerogtalent.com/ai-companies/browser-use) operates as a seven-person team based onsite out of a HackerHouse in San Francisco, CA, US. The company is actively recruiting software and infrastructure engineers to handle growing agent concurrency and customer integration demands.

To drive customer feature delivery, the company is hiring a [Founding Engineer (ex-YC founders only)](https://zerogtalent.com/ai-jobs/browser-use/founding-engineer-ex-yc-founders-only-107158) paying $200,000 to $400,000 per year. The role requires a former founder of a YC-backed company to work in person in San Francisco, debugging issues directly with customers while building integrations, product features, and internal tools.

For field execution, the [Founding Forward-Deployed Engineer](https://zerogtalent.com/ai-jobs/browser-use/founding-forward-deployed-engineer-107014) ($200,000 – $300,000 / year) acts as an extension of the founders. Candidates must engage with users to identify broken workflows, inspect codebases directly, and ship fixes rapidly in person.

Core infrastructure development is led by the [Infra god](https://zerogtalent.com/ai-jobs/browser-use/infra-god-79630) ($200,000 – $400,000 / year), a mid-level role focused on scaling AWS infrastructure to serve over 100,000 production users and millions of autonomous agents.

The team is also seeking an entry-level [Software Engineer](https://zerogtalent.com/ai-jobs/browser-use/software-engineer-75884) ($175,000 – $300,000 / year) to learn the product architecture, reproduce customer bugs, and deploy integration updates onsite. Students can apply for the [Summer Software Engineering Intern (now and Summer 2026)](https://zerogtalent.com/ai-jobs/browser-use/summer-software-engineering-intern-now-and-summer-2026-75451) ($6,000 – $16,000 / month), which involves improving LLM and browser interaction accuracy, scaling execution speeds, and building deterministic workflow replay tools at the San Francisco HackerHouse.

## Open Roles at Browser Use

| Role | Location | Work Mode | Salary |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| [Founding Engineer (ex-YC founders only)](https://zerogtalent.com/ai-jobs/browser-use/founding-engineer-ex-yc-founders-only-107158) | San Francisco, CA, US | Onsite | $200,000 – $400,000 / year |
| [Founding Forward-Deployed Engineer](https://zerogtalent.com/ai-jobs/browser-use/founding-forward-deployed-engineer-107014) | San Francisco, CA, US | Onsite | $200,000 – $300,000 / year |
| [Infra god](https://zerogtalent.com/ai-jobs/browser-use/infra-god-79630) | San Francisco, CA, US | Onsite | $200,000 – $400,000 / year |
| [Software Engineer](https://zerogtalent.com/ai-jobs/browser-use/software-engineer-75884) | San Francisco, CA, US | Onsite | $175,000 – $300,000 / year |
| [Summer Software Engineering Intern (now and Summer 2026)](https://zerogtalent.com/ai-jobs/browser-use/summer-software-engineering-intern-now-and-summer-2026-75451) | San Francisco, CA, US | Onsite | $6,000 – $16,000 / month |

[See all open roles at Browser Use](https://zerogtalent.com/ai-companies/browser-use)

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*Source: [Zero G Talent](https://zerogtalent.com), the job board for space, defense, AI, robotics and frontier-tech companies.*