What is Cluely?
Founded by CEO Roy Lee and COO Neel Shanmugam, Cluely is an undetectable AI agent that feeds you real time information by looking at your screen and listening to your calls—hence, “cheating”. Before founding Cluely, the two were students at Columbia University and created Interview Coder, an AI agent that helped you cheat on coding interviews. After using the software in multiple interviews and securing offers from top companies such as Amazon and Meta, Columbia discovered their actions and expelled both Roy and Neel. However, instead of backing down, Roy and Neel doubled down with a bolder vision—why stop at coding interviews when you can cheat on anything and everything? That’s exactly what Cluely enables.
Cluely came into the startup space with a big vision, but not everyone agreed with the idea. Many criticized the Columbia dropouts, questioning the ethics and implications of their technology. However, Andreessen Horowitz, affectionately known as A16Z, thought the opposite. They saw the potential of Cluely in today’s fast growing digital world and decided to lead a $15 million Series A funding round for Cluely.
Where is Cluely funding coming from?
Cluely has received a lot of attention recently, but they’ve come a long way to stardom. When Cluely was first created, Roy and Neel raised $5.3 million as seed funding led by investors from Abstract Ventures and Susa Ventures. At that time, the future of Cluely looked bleak. Not only did it seem like Cluely didn’t have a product, but public reaction was overall negative due to the fear of a product made for “cheating”. It got so bad that investors eventually forced Roy to change Cluely’s brand naming to “Everything You Need. Before You Ask”. However, the controversy stuck like glue, and the pivot was still met with skepticism.
Roy and Neel didn’t lose hope at this and pushed forward. After recruiting 50 interns and many founding engineers, the duo received their $15 million Series A funding from A16Z only 2 months later. A few investors who were not a part of the deal even told TechCrunch, a well-known tech publication, that Cluely’s post-money valuation is around $120 million. However, both Cluely and A16Z did not comment on this.
How did Cluely get to where it is now?
Unlike most startups, Roy took an unorthodox approach to generate publicity. Rather than shy away from the controversy surrounding Cluely, he leaned into it— famously claiming that “all publicity is good publicity.” It was this idea that influenced him to swing big, posting viral videos of himself using Cluely to cheat during interviews, exams, and even live presentations.
Probably one of most infamous moments happened recently at Y-Combinator, where Roy Lee orchestrated an unofficial after-party for those who attended the YC AI Startup School. The line to the party became so long it started to block traffic, and eventually San Francisco police had to shut it down before it started. Roy used the failed event into a viral marketing moment, posting clips of the chaos saying “Cluely’s aura is just too strong.”
Roy and Neel invested even more into marketing after hiring Daniel Mints as Cluely’s Chief Marketing Officer. Daniel, known for his viral growth strategies at the finance recruiting startup RecruitU, signed on to help bring Roy’s vision to life. Together, the three of them doubled down on controversy and stunt marketing to make Cluely impossible to overlook.
What does the future hold?
What is disturbing about this investment is that it signals the type of startups that venture capitalist firms want to invest in. Cluely does not have a fully launched product online, yet the sheer attention it has garnered was enough to influence A16Z’s decision. This suggests that hype may matter more than the actual service that the startup is providing. It raises significant questions on whether we are entering an era where startups are rewarded for how loud they can announce they are building something rather than for what they are building.
This is not your run-of-the-mill investment as well. A16Z is considered a top venture capitalist firm, and their decision to invest into Cluely was widely regarded as the right decision. Their Series A investment marks the precedent of a shift from viability to virality. A16Z has effectively endorsed a new startup blueprint where getting loud matters more than getting it right.
Public perception is still wary, and that doesn’t seem to be changing anytime soon. However, whether you hate them or you love them, A16Z just made Cluey’s vision more real—and a whole lot harder to ignore. The investment signals a growing appetite for boundary-pushing AI in Silicon Valley, even when the lines start to blue between innovation and ethics.