The co-founders of General Catalyst-backed UK AI startup Portia AI first encountered each other professionally in 2021 at Stripe when Emma Burrows, Stripe’s then-UK CTO, interviewed Mounir Mouawad, for a fintech role at the payment giant.
“She was tough,” says Mouawad, squashed up next to his co-founder, in a small annex to their Kings Cross, London office, on an early weekday morning.
“I think you were tough in the sense that you had a lot on your mind during that interview. But you did sell me. I joined”, he adds.
Since then, both co-founders have had a lot on their minds, as they left blue-chip jobs, experienced parenthood, and launched a startup in the hottest (and highly competitive) area of AI at the moment: AI agents.
Burrows says: “We both have families to support. It certainly doesn’t feel like a completely risk-free decision.
“We really want to make this a success. The idea of going back to a large company and Portia not being a huge success would feel like the most devastating failure of my career.”
What is Portia AI?
The name Portia (as is often the case in AI) pays homage to science-fiction, a nod to the Adrian Tchaikovsky novel Children of Time.
In the sci-fi world, Portia is a genetically modified female spider, who drives her civilisation forward through social and technological leaps, showing resilience in building bridges with other species.
In the real world, Portia provides an LLM (large language model) framework for developers to develop AI agents (autonomous digital assistants that carry out tasks, such as sending an email, researching or potentially buying products on behalf of the user) securely and safely.
AI agents have been the hottest of hot subjects in AI-land this past 12 months (although even experts struggle for a common definition), with AI evangelists seeing them as the future of the workforce.
Portia's open-source technology helps address common challenges developers face when developing agents, such as security, being predictable and the agents not running out of control.
It focuses on taking agents from prototype to production, helping scaleups and enterprises, with typical customers being Series A to Series D, non-AI native startups, according to Burrows.
Mouawad, who like Burrows also previously worked at Google, says: “If you are a developer, there is a lot of complexity that comes with hooking up an LLM with a bunch of software, making sure it acts in a reliable way. We make it simple for developers. They can plug in any LLM that they want.”
Competitors in the space include the US startup CrewAI and the more well-known OpenAI, behind ChatGPT, which also offers similar building tools for developers.
AI agents
Portia’s agents are replacing workflows like KYC, research, analysing market trends and some back office functions.
On the cuckoo-in-the-nest challenge of combating hallucinations, particularly given agents can be operating high-stakes tasks, Mouawad points out that it’s smart to bet that the LLMs will be less prone to hallucinate over time.
Burrows says: “You can create architectures that are built into our system that reduce hallucinations.”
But are these agents actually being deployed to carry out critical decisions or merely acting as human digital assistants?
Burrows says: “I think what people tend to start with on critical decisions is low risk critical decisions. They build up confidence based on the results.”
Portia is competing in an AI industry which to say is fast-moving would be an understatement.
As an indicator of this, 12 months ago, when Portia raised, Burrows says it wasn’t possible to build reliable agents, effectively nullifying Portia’s business, but six months later it was.
For his part, Mouawad says it’s tough to weed out the signal from the noise, and identify genuine tech breakthroughs.
Portia’s roots
Portia’s origins date back to 2022, following a Stripe strategy shift, impacting many of its teams, prompting a then-pregnant Burrows and new-father Mouawad to reassess their professional lives.
Burrows says: “We both realised we essentially wanted to start a business. It wasn’t really the right time of life for us to do it. But we spent a bunch of time over my mat leave brainstorming ideas.”
Ideas that didn’t make it include a Banking-as-a-Service wealth management AI business.
An important piece in the Portia jigsaw, albeit in the shadows, is General Catalyst partner Juliet Bailin, a long-time acquaintance of Burrows, who acted as a sounding board for its ideas.
Burrows says: “That kind of personal relationship and loyalty is important to me.”
In April this year, Portia announced its £4.4m seed funding round, led by General Catalyst, with First Minute Capital, Stem AI, and other angel investors joining the round.
On their tip-top tech CVs helping them open VC doors, Mouawad says: “I would say the conversations we have had with funds suggest that there is an appetite to sit in a room and chat because of our backgrounds. But there was nothing given for free.”
On the risk of launching a startup, with families to provide, Mouawad says: “With all the uncertainty in the world, you often think ‘am I being selfish in pursuing my own dreams at the detriment of the security of my own children's future in having enough of a safety net for them?’”
Divvying up roles and team
Launching a startup can be a high-wire act, putting strain on relationships between co-founders. Luckily, the pair, thought to be in their late 30s/early 40s, appear simpatico.
Divvying up the CEO and CTO roles, for example, was an “easy decision”, says Mouawad, given he admits he’s the gobby one and Burrows has the “deep technical experience”.
He says: "You have to take into account propensity in terms of character. I love the sound of my own voice, I love being around people and I find that very energising. Being in a slightly more commercially shaped role is a more natural fit.”
Burrows, for her part, says the CEO role is not for her.
She says: ‘“I am naturally a more reserved character. I am not that person that puts themselves out there in a room necessarily, I have to force myself to do that. I kind of have no desire to do the CEO role.”
The current team is small, with five full-time engineers timers, two part-timers, and an associate joining next week.
On plucking talent, Burrows says it was relatively easy to build a team in the UK, vis-à-vis the Valley, where Portia would be a “small fish in an extremely big pond”.
She also points to data showing the US to be in a “tricky spot”, with figures highlighting a deficit of AI talent leaving the Valley.
That said, Burrows says Portia will be spending time in the US, as its looks to capture US clients.
The future of AI and future of Portia
The AI industry is full of AI enthusiasts, with some bordering on AI monomania. One high-profile US VC memorably likened AI naysayers to Amish people.
The Portia co-founders are AI pragmatists.
Burrows says: “We are doing an AI company so I think we are pretty AI first.
“But we are a bit more pragmatic than completely bought into all the hype. I think it is going to substantially change the world of work in the next five years.”
Mouawad, says the “genie is out of the bottle” and urges people to “futureproof” themselves.
One concern for Mouawad, who is from the Middle East, is AI applications for defence purposes, which he says keeps him awake at night.
“To me, AI in military applications is as existentially threatening as nuclear weapons and that is the one that I deeply, deeply worry about.”
Meanwhile, Portia has a busy year ahead, the co-founders say.
On the to-do list are building more use cases, acquiring more customers and continuing to put its tech through its paces.
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