AI startup Ares Intelligence raises £2.5m led by Creandum and Lakestar
This article covers Ares Intelligence, an AI startup, which has raised £2.5m in a seed funding round led by Creandum and Lakestar, with participation from angel investors linked to Google DeepMind. The funding will expand the startup's employee-interviewing platform to produce evidence-led roadmaps that help organisations identify and prioritise AI use cases to save time and reduce operational cost.
Ares Intelligence, an AI startup, has raised £2.5m in a seed funding round led by Creandum and Lakestar, with participation from angel investors linked to Google DeepMind. The funding will be used to expand the company’s employee-interviewing platform that generates evidence-led roadmaps for where organisations can apply AI to save time and money — a practical answer to a common problem in AI adoption.
Why it matters
Many companies know they should use AI but struggle to identify which use cases will actually deliver returns. Strategy is often set by a small group of senior leaders, while the people who do the day-to-day work — and who know where time is lost — are rarely consulted. Ares’ approach aims to close that gap by gathering frontline insight at scale and turning it into prioritised actions for leadership.
The product is pitched as a way to reveal manual workarounds, broken handoffs and unapproved tools that seldom make it to the boardroom. For organisations wrestling with limited AI budgets and compliance obligations, having an evidence-based list of deployment priorities can reduce risk and focus investment.
Inside the product
Ares conducts confidential, voice-based conversations with employees across an organisation in more than 70 languages. The platform anonymises responses, is GDPR- and SOC 2-compliant, and can run on a customer’s cloud or on Ares’ infrastructure in the EU or US. Within weeks, customers receive a prioritised roadmap showing where AI could save time and reduce operational cost.
The founders, Matt Falconer (CEO) and Alfie Ranstead (CTO), previously saw the problem while building automation products at Instruct and working with Automation Anywhere. Since launching seven months ago, Ares says it has signed enterprise customers across Europe and the United States. One notable example: Tremonia, a Mercedes‑Benz spin-out, uncovered more than 400 hours of avoidable manual work per month after Ares interviewed staff from senior leadership down to the paint shop floor.
Who are the investors?
The round was led by Creandum and Lakestar, two established European venture firms known for backing early-stage technology companies, alongside participation from angel investors connected to Google DeepMind. Creandum and Lakestar have previously backed a range of enterprise and AI businesses and are investing here on the premise that Ares tackles the practical problem of turning model capability into measurable business outcomes.
In the announcement, Richard Keuntje, Vice President at Creandum, said:
Model capability isn’t what’s holding companies back. It’s knowing which use cases will actually deliver a return, and then putting them into practice. The Ares Intelligence team has seen that pain from both sides of the table, first at Automation Anywhere and then building their own solution with Instruct. Now they’re going after the biggest prize of all: uncovering automation potential where none was possible before. That’s why we’re backing them.
In the announcement, Enrico Mellis, Venture Partner at Lakestar, said:
The gap between AI ambition and real-world evidence is the right challenge to back. I’m building a business with AI myself, and there’s a significant difference between an impressive demo and something you can rely on in your actual work. Matt and Alfie are building around a clear customer problem, with a specific way to uncover it and a focus on results. As an investor, that’s more compelling than another broad promise about AI.
The participation of high-profile investors and DeepMind-affiliated angels signals continuing interest from the venture community in startups that help firms operationalise AI and demonstrate return on investment.
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Founder perspective
The company was founded after the team encountered customers who wanted to automate operations but did not know where to start. The founders position Ares as a way to give every employee a voice across departments, countries and languages and to convert what they share into an actionable plan.
In the announcement, Matt Falconer, Co-founder & CEO at Ares Intelligence, said:
Businesses across Europe know they need to adopt AI, but many still don’t know where to start. It’s vital that companies begin their AI transformations now to avoid falling behind. The people doing the work every day have a huge amount of knowledge about where AI could make a difference, but they’re rarely asked. Ares gives them a voice across departments, countries and languages, and turns what they share into a practical plan. This funding helps us expand and bring that approach to more businesses.
The bigger picture
This fundraise sits within a broader trend: investors and customers are increasingly focused on products that bridge the gap between AI research and repeatable, auditable business value. For European companies, compliance with GDPR and recognised security standards like SOC 2 is a practical constraint that shapes procurement decisions; Ares highlights those controls as part of its proposition.
The seed round underlines appetite at early stage for tools that help organisations prioritise AI use cases and deploy them with evidence and governance. As companies across the UK and Europe move from pilots to scaled deployments, businesses that can reliably surface and quantify where AI will pay off stand to play a central role in adoption.
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