On Sunday, 21-year-old Chungin “Roy” Lee announced he’s raised $5.3 million in seed funding from Abstract Ventures and Susa Ventures for his startup, Cluely, that offers an AI tool to “cheat on everything.”
The startup was born after Lee posted in a viral X thread that he was suspended by Columbia University after he and his co-founder developed a tool to cheat on job interviews for software engineers.
That tool, originally called Interview Coder, is now part of their San Francisco-based startup Cluely. It offers its users the chance to “cheat” on things like exams, sales calls, and job interviews thanks to a hidden in-browser window that can’t be viewed by the interviewer or test giver.
Cluely has published a manifesto comparing itself to inventions like the calculator and spellcheck, which were originally derided as “cheating.”
Cluely also published a slickly produced, but polarizing, launch video of Lee using a hidden AI assistant to (unsuccessfully) lie to a woman about his age, and even his knowledge of art, on a date at a fancy restaurant:
While some praised the video for grabbing people’s attention, others derided it as reminiscent of the dystopian sci-fi television show “Black Mirror”:
Lee, who is Cluely’s CEO, told TechCrunch the AI cheating tool surpassed $3 million in ARR earlier this month.
The startup’s other co-founder is another 21-year-old former Columbia student, Neel Shanmugam, who is Cluely’s COO. Shanmugam was also embroiled in disciplinary proceedings at Columbia over the AI tool. Both co-founders have dropped out of Columbia, the university’s student newspaper reported last week. Columbia declined to comment, citing student privacy laws.
Cluely began as a tool for developers to cheat on knowledge of LeetCode, a platform for coding questions that some in software engineering circles — including Cluely’s founders, of course — consider outdated and a waste of time.
Lee says he was able to snag an internship with Amazon using the AI cheating tool. Amazon declined to comment on Lee’s particular case to TechCrunch, but said its job candidates must acknowledge they won’t use unauthorized tools during the interview process.
Cluely isn’t the only controversial AI startup launched this month. Earlier, a famed AI researcher announced his own startup with the stated mission of replacing all human workers everywhere, causing a brouhaha of its own on X.
Charles Rollet is a senior reporter at TechCrunch. His investigative reporting has led to U.S. government sanctions against four tech companies, including China’s largest AI firm. Prior to joining TechCrunch, Charles covered the surveillance industry for IPVM. Charles is based in San Francisco, where he enjoys hiking with his dogs. You can contact Charles securely on Signal at charlesrollet.12 or +1-628-282-2811.
