- AI service Cluely has raised $5.3 million in seed funding. The “cheating” site was founded by a Columbia student who was suspended from the school. The tool says it lets people cheat on “literally everything.”
Earlier this year, Chungin “Roy” Lee announced he had been suspended from Columbia University after creating an artificial intelligence tool to help prospective software engineers cheat on job interviews. On Sunday, he announced he had raised $5.3 million in seed funding for that very same tool.
That tool, initially called Interview Coder and now called Cluely, has been expanded. Instead of just helping people cheat on coding interviews, it now helps people cheat on “literally everything.” And Lee says the technology will one day be as common as the calculator and spellcheck.
“[To be honest], i don’t think this is cheating,” he wrote in a LinkedIn post announcing the funding. “[E]very single time technology has made people smarter, the world panics. then it adapts. then it forgets. and suddenly, it’s normal. but this is different. humanity is at an inflection point. AI will transform the entire world, and it will be more disruptive than anything we’ve ever seen. Cluely is the bridge to a world where humans don’t compete with machines—we grow with them.”
The announcement was accompanied by a video that showed how the tool could be used on a date, which some viewers have labeled creepy and compared to the dystopian Netflix show Black Mirror. Lee later clarified that “dates are not a real use case for the product.”
Cluely is out. cheat on everything. pic.twitter.com/EsRXQaCfUI
— Roy (@im_roy_lee) April 20, 2025
Cluely says it will help users “cheat” on everything from exams to sales calls, using an in-browser window that can’t be seen by the other party online. The tool’s AI reads the user’s screen and eavesdrops on the audio, providing answers in real time.
The company is charging $20 per month or $100 per year for unlimited usage.
Lee was suspended by the university at the end of March, and his cofounder Neel Shanmugam, who is Cluely’s COO, was also wrapped up in the disciplinary action. Both have since dropped out of the school.
In a manifesto on the Cluely site, the founders argued AI redefines how the world works, saying there was no reason to memorize facts, write code, or research anything when the AI model can do it much faster.
“Every time technology makes us smarter, the world panics,” the manifesto reads. “Then it adapts. Then it forgets. And suddenly, it’s normal… So, start cheating. Because when everyone does, no one is.”
