Insights from the founder of Intelligent AI

As we all know, AI has been making the news headlines this year for all manner of reasons. From Chat GPT breaking into the mainstream, scaremongering stories of people being made redundant across multiple industries and, these last few months, writers and actors striking in Hollywood – whatever your views on this controversial technology, AI is most definitely here to stay.

One person who has founded his own AI business is Anthony Peake, we recently spoke to him about his Exeter-based company, Intelligent AI, and what it was like starting a modern innovative tech company.

Q: What made you decide to start your own business?

A: There were several reasons. The first was that I had been travelling around the world with work for years and I wanted to be in Devon for the end of my children’s schooling, and then an opportunity came up to turn around a software development company that was failing and that got me involved with some of their bigger and more innovative customers working in the insurance sector. From there, following the Grenfell fire disaster, I had been doing a lot of work on predicting risk with fire service callouts and modelling. Plus, during Covid, there was another company that I was interested in that was about to fold because they didn’t know about the furlough scheme in time and so, from a board point of view, they didn’t know how to cash flow it and they were going to make everyone redundant, so I had this opportunity to hire a lot of people simultaneously and it just seemed like the perfect time.

Q: What were the biggest challenges you encountered?

A: Lack of long-term cash flow money, therefore I needed to secure some big projects and big grants to eventually build up enough of a product market fit to be able to go and get some proper investment. Fortunately, I was in a position myself where I could cash flow the business for a year, but about four months in I secured an Innovate UK grant, and then two months after that, got another Innovate UK grant – this cash flowed the business comfortably for about a year or so and then there was a seed funding round. Through SetSquared at Exeter Science Park, I was invited to pitch at one of their events in London, and RLC Ventures (now Concept Ventures) were in the audience and agreed to invest and lead the Pre-Seed Funding Round.

Q: Was there a big team involved?

A: We started with about nine people, and then, after the next investment round, we probably doubled in size.

Q: Regarding all the naysayers and negative press, do you have any issues with AI?

A: No, you take the insurance industry for instance. They cost-effectively can only afford to send out people to maybe 10 per cent of locations that they’re underwriting. Those people gather information and then store it in systems, but all the risks that they find, they don’t have enough people or time to work with the clients and reduce the risks. So, the thing I’ve always said is that 80 percent of everything we do as humans are admin, and only 20 percent adds value to our company or our customers, and therefore, if you can let the system do the admin – with the right guard rails on so it’s fully auditable – then freeing up people from doing 80 per cent of their time on admin, so they can work with people on saving lives, that seems like a reasonable compromise to me.

Q: Did you have an inkling of how big AI would become when you were starting this venture?

A: Sure, as I always tend to be on the bleeding edge of most industries, ie right from the days of launching the Apple Macintosh back in 1984, I could see desktop publishing would be a thing, and then e-commerce might be a thing and Cloud might be a thing – that’s what I’ve always done. In this case, with the insurance industry, they underwrite billions and trillions of pounds, but they only have good data on the things they underwrite in about 20 per cent of locations – so if you have a portfolio of a thousand buildings worth between £1 million and £30 million, insurers will normally sort this by the value of the portfolio and they will send people out to look at the highest value, even though most of their losses come in the middle and bottom of the book – a lot it is spread betting and gambling, and so anyone who can bring together all that data and be able to create a virtual risk report on everything in the portfolio, that’s the vision that all the insurers would love to get to.

Q: Do you have a vision of where you see the company in the next five years?

A: The whole thing has been built on vision, which is to get to series A, we need to get several pins on the ground in certain countries. Right now, I’m in the middle of a big resell here in the UK which will then prove the UK model, and after that, we’ve got a big project in the US; this will give us some of the best data there and that will then make us attractive enough for a series-A which will allow us to put pins on the ground in Asia.

Q: What advice would you give to someone starting their own company?

A: To start a new company, especially a technology company, you need to have such passion because you’re going to get knocked left, right and centre – particularly by investors. One of the reasons in early companies that they go for the team, is firstly, they want to know they’re people that are credible and capable, but also that they can work together through thick and thin and take every knockback because it is 24/7, 365. You also need to have a vision – particularly in some cases: how are you going to make the world a better place in order for that to sustain you and your teams. However, you can’t under-emphasise enough that it’s bloody hard work! One other thing to remember is to try not to lose focus on grants but look to revenue because otherwise, it’s not sustainable.

For general business finance advice and support, check out the HotSW Growth Hub – covering all sectors in the Somerset and Devon region. https://www.heartofswgrowthhub.co.uk/.

If you’re about to start your own business we’d love to hear about what issues you’ve faced so far, so please let us know via the comments!