Arrakis raises £22m led by Blossom Capital with Accel
This article covers Arrakis, an AI startup, which has raised £22m in a growth funding round to help industrial organisations deploy bespoke AI agents for mission-critical operations. The development aims to support industrial organisations in extracting value from existing data and accelerating operational AI adoption across sectors such as energy, logistics and manufacturing.
Arrakis, an AI startup, has raised £22 million in a growth funding round to help industrial companies deploy bespoke AI agents for mission‑critical operations — a bet that could speed AI adoption across legacy industrial systems and shave months from typical deployment timelines.
Why it matters
Many industrial organisations still run on decades‑old software, fragmented systems and manual workflows. As governments and companies across the US and Europe push to rebuild domestic industrial capacity and shore up supply chains, tools that let established firms extract value from existing data and systems become strategically important.
Arrakis targets that gap by focusing on operational use cases rather than desk‑based knowledge work. If the company can deliver reliable, fast returns inside heavy industry, it addresses a much larger portion of the workforce and could influence how industrial digital transformation budgets are allocated.
Inside the product
Arrakis combines an enterprise platform with applied AI research and a deployment model that pairs forward‑deployed AI engineers with customers. The platform is model‑agnostic and integrates agents into existing stacks rather than replacing them. The company says customer data and intellectual property are not used for third‑party model training, and a material portion of fees are tied to customer outcomes.
Early commercial traction appears focused on large energy, logistics and industrial firms, including NYSE‑listed customers. Arrakis reports measurable returns within weeks for customers, citing examples such as a 90% reduction in procurement cycle times and improved real‑time visibility into previously manual operational and financial processes.
Arrakis was founded in January 2026 by Rafael Quintanilla with co‑founders Haroun Beltaifa, Romain Fouilland and Mikhail Galkov. The team includes alumni from Palantir, Delivery Hero, Revolut, Datadog and ASML. The company says it will use the new funding to triple headcount, bolster platform and security capabilities, and accelerate expansion across Europe, the US and the Middle East, with planned office openings in New York and the Middle East from its current London and Paris bases.
In the announcement, Rafael Quintanilla, Co‑founder & CEO at Arrakis, said:
The West is under growing pressure to reindustrialise, but that renaissance won't be powered by net new companies alone. It requires equipping our industrial champions with the tools to harness their data, navigate the AI transition and compete on a global stage. That's exactly why we founded Arrakis. Most AI investment to date has targeted the 30% of workers behind a desk. The real ROI lies in the 70% running industrial operations. We're building from Europe for the world, with the ambition to build the Operating System our industrial champions need to win.
Who are the investors?
The £22 million round is described as a growth funding round. Blossom Capital led the financing; existing investor Accel participated alongside GFC, MainObject and Rerail. The round also attracted technology founders as individual backers, including Datadog co‑founder Olivier Pomel, OpenAI's Head of Business Products Olivier Godement and Cambridge Aerospace founder Junaid Hussein. Arrakis had previously raised a $7.5 million seed round led by Accel, bringing total capital raised to around £28 million within six months of founding.
In the announcement, Ophelia Brown, Managing Partner at Blossom Capital, said:
Rafael and the Arrakis team have an exceptional combination of technical depth, operational expertise and commercial ambition. While many companies are focused on AI applications at the edge of the enterprise, Arrakis is tackling some of the most complex operational challenges facing large industrial organisations. Their early traction demonstrates both the scale of the opportunity and the demand for solutions that deliver measurable outcomes.
In the announcement, Sonali De Rycker, Partner at Accel, said:
Rafael's vision of how AI will transform the physical economy and his deep understanding of the challenges industrial companies face means he and the team are building a transformative company. In a short period of time, they've built an impressive business, attracted world‑class talent and secured significant customer demand. We're excited to continue supporting Arrakis as it scales globally.
If you're researching potential backers in this space:
- Explore our list of AI venture capital firms in the UK
- Browse our directory of AI angel investors in the UK
Founder perspective
The founding team’s mix of investor, enterprise and engineering backgrounds shapes Arrakis’s product and go‑to‑market approach. The company emphasises fast time to value by deploying engineers alongside customers to tailor agents to operational data and workflows. That hands‑on deployment model aims to reduce integration risk — a common failure point for industrial AI projects.
The bigger picture
Arrakis’s raise highlights two trends in the UK and European AI ecosystems: investor appetite for companies that apply AI to the physical economy, and growing interest in ventures that address industrial customers with long replacement cycles and high switching costs. For policymakers and corporate leaders focused on reindustrialisation, tools that retrofit intelligence onto existing infrastructure may be a pragmatic route to competitiveness.
As Arrakis scales from London and Paris into the US and the Middle East, its progress will be one to watch for anyone tracking how AI moves from prototypes to reliable infrastructure inside heavy industry.
They've invested in Arrakis
Get to know these AI investors
| Investors | Investment Focus | Startup Investments | Round Size | Connect |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 Blossom Capital( ) Blossom is a venture capital firm focused on investing in European technology co... London  | ||||
 | ||||
| All investors | All investor sectors | All funded startups | All funding rounds |
| Angel Investors | Location | Connect | Investment Focus | Startup Investments |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 Olivier Pomel is a French entrepreneur and angel investor best known as the co-f... | NYC | |||
US | ||||
| All angel investors | All locations | All investor sectors | All funded startups |
*These angel investors have publicly mentioned their interest in angel investing or are members of angel networks. (Last updated: July 2026)
Click here for a full list of 7,589+ startup investors in the UK