Artificial intelligence startup Portia AI has raised £4.4 million in funding led by General Catalyst with the participation of First Minute Capital and Stem AI.
Portia AI is a provider of AI development tools offering an open-source SDK. The company says users can “build production-grade AI agents they can predict, control, and authenticate.” According to the company, teams have limited control without the ability to monitor progress, act when needed, or authenticate agents into existing applications. These limitations may undermine regulated industries like Financial Services.
Co-founded by CEO Mounir Mouawad and CTO Emma Burrows, who met at Stripe in London, the company came out of stealth in March and has already begun signing design partners and growing its developer following.
Burrows was the CTO of Stripe UK, where she built the London engineering team from the ground up.
Mouawad led multiple product expansions along with banking as a service at Stripe and Google Pay.
Burrows says they want to democratize AI solutions for all developers as AI engineers must currently “navigate their way trhough the challenges of deploying reliable agents.’
“Companies want to build products and processes on agents that feel like transparent, collaborative partners rather than black boxes”.
Juliet Bailin, Partner at General Catalyst, described the co-founders as brilliant, creating a generational company.
“Their vision is expansive, and they are well known among developers and business leaders alike for their ingenuity. We are exhilarated to be working alongside them.”