Cluely, which launched promising to help users cheat on everything, raised $15M

Cluely, the provocative San Francisco startup that promises to help users "cheat on everything," has secured $15 million in Series A funding led by Andreessen Horowitz, pushing its valuation to around $120 million.

The company was founded earlier this year by 21-year-old Roy Lee and Neel Shanmugam, who were suspended from Columbia University for developing "Interview Coder"—an undetectable AI tool designed to assist software engineers in cheating on technical interviews. That controversy helped catapult Lee to viral fame and became the foundation for Cluely's broader mission.

Cluely has since eliminated references to cheating, positioning itself as an "undetectable" AI that monitors users' screens and provides real-time answers across various scenarios. Still, the startup has not departed too far from its controversial marketing strategies. In April, Cluely's launch video expectedly went viral upon release. In it, Lee attempts to use the tool to (unsuccessfully) impress a woman on a date.

With the new funding, Lee aims to reach 1 billion views across all platforms. "We'll do pretty much whatever it takes to do that," he told Business Insider. Lee recently posted on LinkedIn that Cluely was looking for 50 "growth interns" who would, at the very least, be expected to post four daily TikToks. Underperformers, Lee said, would be "fired and replaced immediately. There will be no breathing room and no time for mistakes."

The company claims profitability and has backing from Abstract Ventures and Susa Ventures, who led Cluely's $5.3 million seed round just two months earlier.