Two 21-year-old childhood friends have raised $3 million for an AI platform designed to help growing businesses find customers and build their sales pipelines without the cost of a large in-house marketing team.

Revnu was founded by George Jefferson and Art Freebrey, who first met in secondary school before going on to launch a string of businesses together while still in education.

After recognising that the AI systems they had developed to automate work in their own businesses could have a much wider application, George and Art were encouraged by Monzo co-founder Jonas Templestein to pursue the opportunity and apply to Y Combinator. 

The pair then dropped out of university and moved temporarily to Silicon Valley to take part in the renowned accelerator.

Revnu has now raised $3m in a round led by NPIF II – PXN Equity Finance, which is managed by PXN Ventures as part of the Northern Powerhouse Investment Fund II. The company also received backing from Y Combinator.

Despite considering building Revnu in San Francisco following the programme – and with much of its current customer base located there – George and Art instead returned to Manchester, where they believe access to emerging engineering and technology talent gives them the right base from which to scale globally.