Patrick Smith is used to attracting attention.
He’s the CEO of Manchester startup Zally and has just won the 2025 North West AI Entrepreneur of the Year Award at The Allica Bank Entrepreneur Awards.
Known for his fast-talking and snappy dress sense, Smith has never disguised his ambition to create a unicorn business.
The entrepreneur even launched The Unicorn Playbook earlier this year to showcase what it takes to build a billion-dollar company.
Three-year-old Zally is a long way from becoming a unicorn but the startup has raised an impressive £4m and recently moved its headquarters to San Francisco as it prepares for a US raise.
“It puts us at the heart of the AI ecosystem and closer to the global funding and commercial networks we need to scale,” he told BusinessCloud in September.
The 40-year-old splits his time between San Francisco and Manchester, providing regular updates to more than 7,000 followers on LinkedIn, signing off with his trademark message: ‘Be bold, be brave, be kind.’
Last week he documented a visit by Zally’s board to the Google campus for a meeting with the tech giant’s CMO Lorraine Twohill.
Manchester’s zally to move HQ to San Francisco after £2.8m raise
“Some meetings remind you why you started and where you are going,” he wrote afterwards about the encounter. “The future belongs to technology that understands behaviour in motion and adapts to the world as it really is, not as it was yesterday.”
Unwanted attention
However, in recent months, Smith has been attracting the sort of attention he probably wouldn’t want.
It started when a newspaper article from his native Norway began to do the rounds.
I was one of those to be sent a copy of the article, which catalogued 11 of his previous business failures.
It’s important to stress that they date back more than a decade and to a period of Smith’s life that he preferred not to talk to me about and doesn’t go into detail about on LinkedIn
The article sparked a flurry of calls to me and was the subject of much debate in Manchester’s tech ecosystem.
That’s why I decided to reach out to Smith last Thursday (November 27th) to give him the chance to reply.
More about his response later but first some background.
I was first introduced to Smith about three years ago, soon after he arrived in Manchester from London.
On brand: Patrick Smith, CEO, Zally
I used to joke that I didn’t know many Norwegians with the surname of ‘Smith’!
He explained that he’d previously launched a digital marketing agency in London, which he’d scaled to over 50 employees and 250+ retained clients in just two years.
He immediately threw himself into the tech community, joining the Greater Manchester Digital Security Hub (DiSH), which provides business support and mentoring opportunities for digital and cyber businesses in Greater Manchester.
Smith explained that Zally’s mission was to help people to authenticate themselves without the need for passwords.
In 2023 he told BusinessCloud why he chose to set up Zally in Manchester.
“Finding the right talent and securing funding are the biggest challenges for a tech startup,” he said.
“Manchester is home to an abundance of skilled cybersecurity professionals, and since moving here, our team has grown significantly.
“I can confidently say that if I had set up a company in London, I would not have experienced the same level of growth as I did in Manchester. It would simply not have happened there.”
Confidence has never been a quality that Smith has lacked.
‘Bigger than a unicorn’
I remember he told BusinessCloud’s 2024 GM 125 Rising Stars of Business event that he wanted to build a business ‘bigger than a unicorn’ while wearing a pink jacket to match Zally’s branding!
He said at the time he was a born entrepreneur who had run several businesses including full stack development, digital marketing, events and 15 years as a DJ.
He describes himself on LinkedIn as a ‘builder in the truest sense of the word’ and a ‘school dropout who preferred the trenches to the classroom’.
His latest profile reads: “On and off stage, Patrick brings the raw energy of a founder who has seen it all.
“He challenges audiences to look beyond the cold logic of today’s technology and join him in building a future where our systems don’t just process our data but perceive our intent, adapt to our needs, and finally understand who we are.”
Smith, who has updated his LinkedIn profile since I contacted him on Thursday, didn’t want to talk about several aspects of the Norwegian newspaper article and we’ve chosen not to repeat the contents here.
However, in an emailed response, he said: “It relates to events from more than a decade ago, which I have been open about and (have) always taken full responsibility.
“Some of the businesses I ran in my early twenties were dissolved, leaving creditors unpaid, which I wholly regret.”
He also responded to several questions around what Zally’s product actually does.
“Zally develops AI models that interpret behavioural signals in real time, helping systems understand and continuously verify users based on how they naturally interact with their devices,” he explained.
“Our first commercial application is in authentication, where we replace passwords and static checks with frictionless, continuous verification that improves both security and user experience.
“We’re fortunate to be working with enterprise partners across the UK and the US and to be supported by a brilliant team of researchers, engineers, and product specialists across Manchester and San Francisco, alongside experienced strategic advisors, including our executive chair, David Webb. To date we have raised more than £4m.”
Unicorn chaser: Patrick Smith, CEO, Zally
Zally employs c.15 staff and still has a base in Manchester. Smith said: “I’m proud to call Manchester my home for more than three years, and it is where we built Zally from the early days.
“The city has an incredible community, and we’re proud to contribute to it through our work with local universities, accelerators, founders, and community initiatives as we continue building an international technology company from here.”
No comment
I did ask Smith several other questions but he replied ‘no comment’ 14 times, which I fully respect.
However, he has provided more details in his updated LinkedIn profile, which now reads: “He (Patrick) founded his first two businesses at 10 and navigated the highs and lows of 11 failed ventures before his 25th birthday.
“He takes full ownership of that journey and views those early years not just as startups, but as the brutal, necessary training ground for learning exactly what it takes to win. That persistence paid off.
“A jack-of-all-trades who can seamlessly bridge the gap between creative design, deep tech, and commercial strategy, Patrick turned those hard-won lessons into a career defined by innovation and successful exits.
“Now, he is the founder and CEO of Zally, a San Francisco and Manchester-based company pioneering behavioural AI.”
Last month, Smith wrote on LinkedIn about the different ways the US and UK approach failure.
“In the UK, failure carries weight,” he said. “It’s a quiet stigma. Uncomfortable. Something you try to recover from. Or something others quietly hold against you.
“But here? It’s expected. Not romanticised. Not glossed over. Just part of the process.
“Because what matters isn’t the failure. It’s what you do next.”
- Contact Chris.Maguire@BusinessCloud.co.uk