Learning in Shorts: Grew ARR 10x to $50M ARR in 6 Months
Cluely ARR hit $7M doubled in weeks
There is a lot of noise about Cluely, founded by 21-year-olds Chungin “Roy” Lee and Neel Shanmugam.
It is an AI-powered “invisible assistant” that delivers in‑context real-time help during video calls, interviews, exams, or sales pitches via a stealthy screen overlay. Designed to function discreetly, Cluely allows users to access AI-generated answers without detection, a novel—and controversial—approach to boosting performance in high-stakes, real-time scenarios.
Its viral launch strategy, featuring polarizing videos and aggressive growth marketing, has driven rapid adoption and enormous buzz.
Cluely ARR hit $7M doubled in weeks
In an astonishing display of traction, Cluely’s ARR skyrocketed from around $3 million in June to $7 million by early July—a doubling within just weeks. This surge underscores immense demand for real-time AI assistance amid growing traction among college students, job seekers, and professionals willing to adopt edgy tech that blurs ethical lines.
Financially, Cluely raised $5.3 million in seed funding in April 2025, led by Abstract Ventures and Susa Ventures, followed by a $15 million Series A led by Andreessen Horowitz in June—bringing total investment to roughly $20.3 million and a post-money valuation near $120 million.
With 70,000 users reported shortly after seed, strong viral marketing, and plans to scale further (including potential hardware integration), Cluely is fast building momentum—even amid emerging rivals and anti‑cheating detection tools entering the market.
What’s more, Cluely is reported spending $15 million from its Series A funding to create 10,000 TikTok accounts.
Daytona ARR Hits $1 M within 2 months of launching
Daytona, an innovative agent-native runtime infrastructure, skyrocketed to an impressive $1 million in ARR within just two months of launching its revamped platform in late April 2025.
The core value of Daytona lies in solving the “infra lag” problem: infrastructure that traditionally required 12+ months to generate meaningful revenue adoption by developers. By eliminating that delay and enabling ultra-fast, scalable agent run-times, Daytona onboarded bleeding‑edge AI startups and enterprise internal teams, translating immediate usage into real ARR growth.
Their customer base spans startups and major enterprises, all deploying autonomous agents requiring high-performance runtime environments that simply didn’t exist before.
Founded in 2023 by Ivan Burazin (formerly Codeanywhere) and the team, Daytona pursued a bold pivot in February 2025 from general dev environments to agent-focused infrastructure.
Learning in Shorts: From $6M to $50Min ARR in 6 Months
But one of the most interesting and inspiring startups I’ve come across recently is an education platform that uses short-form video (or short drama-style episodes) to deliver learning content.
It was initially inspired by the educational subculture on TikTok and started out resembling a TikTok for learning. But over time, it evolved into more of a “Netflix for short-form education.”
In the past 6 months alone, its ARR has grown nearly 10x, reaching $50 million, all with a team of just over 30 people.