AI butler IrisGo nets $2.8m, eyes series A after CES buzz

IrisGo, a US startup building a “digital butler” for PC users, has closed a US$2.8 million seed round led by Andrew Ng’s AI Fund, the startup confirmed to Tech in Asia last week. The company is valued at US$21 million.

Jeffrey Lai, IrisGo’s co-founder and CEO, says he’s already in talks with new investors for a potential series A round of around US$20 million. The company hasn’t set any specific timeline for the series A, though it expects June “to be a good candidate.”

The startup will use the funds for product development. It recently hired four new engineers, though Lai emphasizes that he wants the team to stay lean due to the heavy involvement of AI coding tools such as Claude Code.

IrisGo’s co-founding team (from left): Jeffrey Lai (CEO), Arnold Yip (CTO), Yale Lee (CSO), and Lman Chu / Photo credit: IrisGo

Lai and his team demoed IrisGo’s desktop butler app at CES in Las Vegas earlier this month, showing off features such as screen recording as well as mouse and keyboard controlling. The app ran on laptops built by Acer, a launch partner for IrisGo.

“We’re getting a lot of traction after CES. What we did there proved that we’re able to attract new investors for a potential series A round,” Lai tells Tech in Asia.

Acer devices with IrisGo’s app preinstalled are scheduled to ship globally by the end of this month. Three more launch partners are expected to come in the following months, Lai adds, though he declined to disclose names.

IrisGo also plans to make the app available to download publicly for any devices running Intel’s AI-focused Core Ultra Series 3 (Panther Lake) and similar processors.

See also: Ex-Siri engineer bets AI PCs need a butler, not another Copilot

Having the app preinstalled could help IrisGo reach users at scale with minimum expenses, says Lai, noting that the startup did not pay to have its AI butler installed on its partners’ computers.

Any revenue will come from user subscriptions. IrisGo plans to offer both free and premium tiers, the latter at US$20 per month.

The startup expects to have 1 million daily active users by the end of 2026 through Acer’s ecosystem. Taking into account a 10% conversion rate, this would generate around US$2 million in annual recurring revenue, Lai estimates.

IrisGo vs. Copilot?

Most laptop makers are aggressively promoting devices with Microsoft’s Copilot built in. This means users will have access to multiple AI assistants preinstalled on new laptops.

Lai isn’t concerned about users choosing one over the other, as he believes Copilot and IrisGo serve different purposes.