From Campus Scandal to Silicon Valley: The AI ‘Cheating’ Tool That Just Raised $5.3M
On Sunday, 21-year-old Chungin “Roy” Lee lit up tech Twitter with a bold announcement: he’s just raised $5.3 million in seed funding for his startup, Cluely—an AI tool designed, in his own words, to help people “cheat on everything.”
Yes, everything.
Backed by Abstract Ventures and Susa Ventures, Cluely didn’t spring from a boardroom or think tank—it was born out of controversy. Just months ago, Lee was suspended from Columbia University after creating a tool designed to help software engineers secretly ace job interviews. That tool, Interview Coder, worked in stealth mode during live interviews, feeding real-time answers to users without being detected.
Now, it’s the core of Cluely, a San Francisco-based startup aiming to disrupt not just interviews, but exams, sales calls—even awkward first dates.
Cluely’s AI operates through a hidden browser window, offering on-the-fly support without the person on the other side of the screen ever knowing. It’s slick, seamless—and wildly controversial.
Lee isn’t shying away from that. Cluely released a bold launch video showing Lee using the tool on a date at an upscale restaurant. The AI feeds him lines about art, his age, and more—none of which go over particularly well. The point? “Everyone cheats. We just made it smarter,” Lee quips.
To justify their mission, Cluely’s team published a manifesto comparing the tool to once-controversial inventions like calculators and spellcheck. What was once called “cheating,” they argue, eventually became everyday efficiency.
Still, critics are far from convinced. As Cluely pushes boundaries, it’s sparking fierce debates over ethics, AI, and the future of human skill.
Is Cluely the next step in digital productivity—or the beginning of a high-tech shortcut culture?
Either way, $5.3 million says this conversation is just getting started.
From College Suspension to Startup Sensation: Cluely’s Controversial Climb
Cluely, now fully out in the wild, isn’t just surviving the scandal—it’s thriving. CEO Roy Lee told TechCrunch that the AI-driven tool has already surpassed $3 million in annual recurring revenue (ARR), and it’s still growing.
Behind the scenes, Lee isn’t alone. His co-founder and COO, Neel Shanmugam, also 21 and a fellow Columbia dropout, was similarly caught in the university’s disciplinary net. Both founders have since left Columbia, according to the school’s student newspaper. When asked for comment, the university cited student privacy laws and stayed silent.
The startup’s roots are unapologetically rebellious. What began as a tool for developers to “cheat” on LeetCode—a coding test platform often criticized as outdated—has since expanded into a broader mission: to bypass any high-pressure performance test, from sales calls to exams.
Lee claims the AI tool even helped him land an internship at Amazon. While Amazon wouldn’t confirm details about his application, a spokesperson did say that candidates are required to promise not to use unauthorized tools during interviews. What counts as “unauthorized” in the age of stealth AI? That line is blurring fast.
Cluely may be controversial, but it’s not alone. Just this month, another AI startup—founded by a prominent researcher—made headlines by announcing a mission to replace all human workers. That, too, stirred chaos across social media.
But unlike abstract futurist ideas, Cluely’s product is very real, very usable, and very now. With $5.3 million in funding and millions in ARR, Lee and Shanmugam are betting big on a future where “cheating” is just another name for working smart.