Unlikely AI, an Artificial Intelligence startup based in London, has scored $20 million in seed funding. The recent round follows the £1.1 million angel-only round it raised in October 2020.
Amadeus Capital Partners and Octopus Ventures (which backed Intigriti and Delio) co-led the oversubscribed round, which also included participation by Cambridge Innovation Capital, Skype founder Jaan Tallinn’s Metaplanet and others.
The angel investors in the round include Christopher North; Patrick Pichette, the former CFO of Google and current Twitter board member; the prominent Silicon Valley executive Barak Berkowitz; and many members of Cambridge Angels, a group of over 60 high-net worth investors of whom Tunstall-Pedoe is also a member. Berkowitz has also joined the board of the company following the round.
Expansion and growth plans
The startup will use the funding to boost the development of its ambitious, fresh approach to artificial intelligence (AI) and expand its team.
William Tunstall-Pedoe, founder of Unlikely AI said: “The entire team is very excited about the opportunity that this financing has given us to develop Unlikely AI and its technology, and we are delighted to partner with our new investors.”
Amelia Armour, Partner at Amadeus Capital Partners, who is joining Unlikely AI’s board, commented, “We’re excited to be backing William in his latest venture. Unlikely AI has the potential to disrupt many sectors and William has the knowledge and experience to build a global company of immense value.”
Simon King, Partner, Octopus Ventures commented, “Evi Technologies was one of the first investments Octopus Ventures made from our Titan fund and it gave us the opportunity to see how unique William’s knowledge and pedigree in AI are. A decade on from Evi’s success, we couldn’t be happier to be working with him again as he and his team build on another world changing idea.”
Founded by Alexa developer
Unlikely AI was founded by William Tunstall-Pedoe in 2018 in London. The founder is best known for his role in the development of Amazon Alexa. His first company, Evi Technologies, developed a voice assistant with language understanding and question-answer capability, and the company was acquired by Amazon and used to launch Alexa.
The company has not announced any of its own projects for now. However, its website showcases its AI capability in the form of an AI dubbed Ross. It showed Ross with the ability to solve cryptic crossword puzzles featured in an app called Crossword Genius. It uses machine vision to read in crosswords found in newspapers with a device camera and solves them on the device.
