A startup developing a desktop-native AI assistant that learns from users’ real workflows has raised an uncapped £940,000 pre-seed round backed by a roster of high-profile investors.
San Francisco-based Attention.inc was founded by 19-year-old Canadian Aidan Guo and 23-year-old German Julian Windeck, who graduated from the University of Cambridge.
Guo previously ran footwear resale group PremeProfits and co-founded sustainable stationery startup Fern before leaving Carnegie Mellon to build Attention in San Francisco.
Windeck brings research experience from Cambridge, MIT and Berkeley, focusing on distributed systems and computer vision.
The founding team also includes graduates from Cambridge and ETH Zurich, as well as social media creator Cole Lee.
The round gained attention and participation from several key industry figures, including Lukas Haas (DeepMind, Sequoia Scout), Marvin von Hagen and Felix Schlegal (co-founders of Interaction), Silas Alberti (founding team, Cognition), Village Global, Liquid 2 Ventures, Everyday Intelligence and Bryan Pellegrino (co-founder, LayerZero).
The company is building an AI co-pilot designed to automate repetitive, multi-app desktop tasks.
Its software observes user behaviour to anticipate actions, streamline sequences and is expected to handle certain tasks autonomously.
“Canada has incredible talent, but the support systems, capital, and flexibility available in the US is what made it possible for us to build this team and scale fast,” said Guo.
“I left school, moved across the continent, and lived on couches to find the right environment to take this idea from early experiments to a real product.
“In Canada, that kind of opportunity just isn’t as accessible yet.”
Interaction co-founder von Hagen added: “Attention.inc is taking what early tools like Rewind.ai started and pushing it further, turning observation into action.
“The team’s technical depth, speed, and ambition are exceptional.”
The funding will be used to expand engineering capacity in machine learning, systems and privacy, accelerate product development, and begin enterprise pilots with early adopters.
The company plans to maintain distributed engineering hubs in Cambridge, Zurich and Munich, with product and go-to-market teams in San Francisco and London.