Today, it’s cheating. Tomorrow, it’s fair.
Yep, that’s Cluely’s tagline and at this point it’s not just a tagline it has become a mission. Cluely just got $15 million boost, thanks to Series A led by Andreessen Horowitz.
What’s Cluely’s objective you may ask? It doesn’t just want you to know how to play a game. It wants you to know how to break it, bend it and win it no matter what the circumstance is, and provides you with tools for the same.
Whether you’re faking your way through a job interview or bullshitting your way through a test, guess who’s got your back? Cluely.
Roy Lee Got Kicked Down. Then He Kicked The Door Down
Roy Lee is 21 years old and has already been banned from not one, but two ivy league schools. He’s the one behind Cluely. Roy Lee built interview coder, which is an AI tool that helped coach engineers through technical interviews in real time. And what’s mind blowing is that it was completely undetectable.
Columbia University suspended him.
Harvard rescinded his admission.
So what did he do? Was he heartbroken? Were his parents disappointed? I don’t think so. He built his own company as a result of this.
So with the co-founder Neel Shanmugam, who is a dropout from Columbia university, Lee launched Cluely. Cluely is an AI tool that helps you cheat, that too smarter, faster and without getting caught. Less than a year later, they are actually sitting on a $15 million funding and there’s a rumored $120 million valuation!
Cluely Doesn’t Apologize. It Uploads.
The company blew up on X, all credit to Lee’s internet-breaking videos and wild energy. Here’s a video that was posted when Cluely raised $15 million. And you might have seen the video where he basically used a hidden AI assistant on a date and lied about his age, his taste in art, and basically everything else.
And if you haven’t seen the viral clip that has been floating around recently, it’s the one where he says:
Columbia kicked me out. Harvard took back my acceptance. I still raised $15 million.
He’s not sorry. He’s saying watch me.
$15M and No Filter
As reported by TechCrunch, they locked down a $5.3M seed round earlier this year from Abstract Ventures and Susa Ventures. Moreover, after this Cluely went louder. Lee kept on posting. Kept on building. Kept getting attention.
And now they’ve got Andreessen Horowitz backing them. This is absolutely mind blowing to achieve in less than a year. The rumors of $120 million valuation have neither been addressed by A16z nor Lee. But everyone on the internet is watching.
Additionally, Cluely also tried throwing a massive party after Y Combinator’s AI Startup School. Over 2000 students showed up. Police shut it down. Lee’s response?
We cleaned up. The drinks are still waiting for the next party.
This Isn’t a Tool, It’s a Movement.
The funding just shows that Cluely is here to stay and is already making profits. It’s also polarizing. But that’s the whole point. People either hate it or love it.
Critics are talking about ethics, on the other hand supporters are calling it an empowerment. But Cluely doesn’t care about what you think. It’s here to give people what the system never did: a real shot. Even if it means tricking the system to get it.
And the tagline?
Hits harder every day.
Today, it’s cheating. Tomorrow, it’s fair.
