‍We're excited to back an exceptional emerging founder, Will Ashford and the team at TrueState, who are enabling fast AI adoption for businesses with their new platform.

TrueState, a Sydney-based startup, has burst onto the scene with a mission to make high-impact AI applications accessible to businesses of all sizes. 

Led by ex-McKinsey QuantumBlack consultant Will Ashford, TrueState has secured AUD $1.5 million in pre-seed funding from investors including us at Galileo Ventures, along with AirTree and Side Stage Ventures.

From AI consultant to AI platform builder

Will's journey from helping C-suite leaders adopt AI to founding TrueState is a classic case of an entrepreneur identifying a gap in the market through firsthand experience. During his time at McKinsey's AI division, Will observed a recurring pattern: companies were either relying on 'toy' AI tools that didn't impact the bottom line or getting bogged down in over-budget, delayed custom AI solutions that took 10-20 months (on average) to even go live.

"The potential of AI is huge, but building impactful AI from scratch is hard."

Will mentions, “the potential of AI is huge, but building impactful AI from scratch is hard. It’s like building Microsoft Excel each time you want to perform an analysis with spreadsheets - you just wouldn’t do it."

The lightbulb moment? Realising that the cost to build and train many AI models was plummeting - we're talking 50x faster than Moore's Law. This opened up a world of possibilities for making AI more accessible and impactful for businesses.

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Bridging the technical gap

TrueState's secret sauce lies in its ability to bridge the technical gap that has long been a barrier for businesses wanting to leverage AI. Their platform combines best-in-class technology with a simplified interface, allowing organisations to configure their own AI use-cases without needing a team of ML engineers.

Customers are now able to choose from a library of proven AI use-cases and configure them with your data, all without writing a single line of code. And deploy it within days. That's the ‘TrueState magic’. Use-cases include identifying customers likely to churn to optimising inventory and cash flows, the possibilities are as diverse as the businesses using the platform.

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“Every industry is being reshaped by AI, with winners and losers defined by their ability to harness the right AI tools to deliver real commercial value.”

Why Galileo is backing TrueState

At Galileo Ventures, we're always on the lookout for exceptional emerging founders building new product categories. TrueState ticks both these boxes, with a twist. Here's why we're excited:

1. Unique approach: While many AI platforms target internal engineering teams, TrueState is focusing on 'non-technical' enterprise customers, who often don't have the internal engineering resources to build their own AI solutions but are equally, if not more, valuable. It's a different angle in a massive, growing market.
2. Workflows over chat: We believe that for businesses, improving workflows is more valuable than chatbots. TrueState's platform enables broader integration across teams, data silos, and applications. LLMs are not the end goal, but part of the suite of tools a business can use to achieve an outcome that drives true ‘bottom-line’ results. 
3. Founder-market fit: Will's background in AI consulting gives him unique earned insights into the challenges businesses face when adopting AI, and the opportunities that exist today.. We like to say the best founders build off opportunities with earned insights and Will typifies this. 

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As Will mentions, “Every industry is being reshaped by AI, with winners and losers defined by their ability to harness the right AI tools to deliver real commercial value.” TrueState is positioning itself at the forefront of making this technology accessible and impactful for businesses. We're thrilled to be part of their journey and can't wait to see how they'll transform the enterprise AI landscape.

For more information, check out Will’s blog introducing TrueState and Galileo Partner, James, post on investing in enterprise AI.

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The TLDR; Tell me in a meme:

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