A group of entrepreneurs who moved from across the world to launch a business in the UK have raised £2.44 million for their AI startup, Archestra.
The founding team of Matvey Kukuy (CEO), Ildar Iskhakov (CTO), and engineer Joey Orlando moved from Singapore, Israel, and Canada respectively to establish the company in the UK. Mr Kukuy and Mr Iskhakov are childhood friends who previously founded the incident management platform Amixr, which was acquired by Grafana in 2021.
The trio has developed a platform that enables companies to securely use AI agents and connect them to internal data sources safely. The open-source platform introduces security layers that allow businesses to safely adopt the latest advances in AI, including the “Model Context Protocol” (MCP). The MCP was unveiled by AI company Anthropic in November and is a framework that makes it easier for people to connect large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT with their own systems and data sources, such as Slack, email, or HR platforms.
The London-based business will use the new investment to develop this platform as it looks to tap into the burgeoning integration-platform-as-a-service (iPaaS) market, which is forecast to exceed £12.58 billion in revenue by 2028.
The funding round was led by Concept Ventures and included participation from Zero Prime Ventures, Celero Ventures, RTP Global, and Aloniq, along with numerous angel investors.
CEO, Matvey Kukuy, commented: “MCP is unlocking a new frontier for AI agents, but, right now, MCP is completely unsuitable for the enterprise. We’re building the security-first solution that will change this. Our open-source platform means anyone, whether you’re an engineer or a HR rep, can safely and impactfully integrate AI agents into their workflow – driving efficiency and impact at scale – without increasing risks. The speed at which we’re moving reflects how passionate we are about this solution and the impact we think it can have in the market.”
Image source: LinkedIn
