Building Cluely: The Viral AI Startup That Raised $15M in 10 Weeks

In the featured video a16z General Partners Erik Torenberg and Bryan Kim sit down with Roy Lee, cofounder and CEO of Cluely, one of the most talked-about consumer AI startups of 2025.

Cluely didn’t raise a mega round or drop a feature suite to get traction – it broke through by turning distribution into design: launching viral short-form videos, pushing polarizing product drops, and building in public with speed and spectacle.

Rapid Fundraising

Cluely, a San Francisco-based AI startup founded in 2024 by 21-year-old Columbia University dropouts Chungin “Roy” Lee and Neel Shanmugam, has garnered significant attention for its controversial business model and provocative marketing.

The company recently raised $15 million in a Series A funding round led by Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), following a $5.3 million seed round from Abstract Ventures and Susa Ventures. Cluely gained notoriety after its founders were suspended from Columbia for developing “Interview Coder,” an AI tool designed to assist users in cheating on technical interviews.

The startup’s viral marketing, including a video of Lee using AI to deceive a date about his knowledge, has amassed millions of views but sparked ethical debates about academic and professional integrity. Cluely’s attempt to host a large after-party for Y Combinator’s AI Startup School was shut down by police due to overcrowding, further amplifying its controversial reputation.

Despite backlash, Cluely claims profitability with 70,000-80,000 weekly active users and a valuation of approximately $120 million. The company is now focusing on expanding its AI capabilities and aims for 1 billion social media views through aggressive influencer-driven marketing.

Business Model

Cluely’s business model centers on an undetectable, in-browser AI assistant that uses speech recognition, optical character recognition, and lightweight large language models to provide real-time answers during high-stakes situations like job interviews, exams, and sales calls.

The AI operates discreetly, feeding users answers within 250 milliseconds to mimic natural thought. Initially marketed as a tool to “cheat on everything,” Cluely has since toned down explicit references to cheating, repositioning itself as a productivity tool, though its core functionality remains controversial.

The company emphasizes distribution over technical IP, relying heavily on viral, controversy-driven marketing to build brand awareness. Cluely employs only two roles—engineers to build the product and influencers to promote it—eschewing traditional marketing or sales teams. Its strategy includes hiring 50 “growth interns” to post TikTok content daily, targeting massive social media reach.

Cluely’s long-term vision is to create ultra-personalized AI models that adapt to users’ tones and needs, potentially evolving into an “ambient AI” or even brain-integrated technology, as articulated by CEO Roy Lee. The startup’s provocative approach and early revenue traction have attracted significant investor interest despite ethical concerns.