Augmented Intelligence (AUI), the company behind Apollo-1, the world’s first neuro-symbolic foundation model for task-oriented conversational AI, announced it has raised $20 million at a $750 million valuation cap. The bridge SAFE round, which closed in just one week, brings AUI’s total funding to nearly $60 million.
The round included participation from eGateway Ventures, existing shareholders, an investor group from New Era Capital Partners, and strategic partners. The funding follows AUI’s previous $10 million round, which took place at a $350 million valuation cap in September 2024, when the company also announced a go-to-market partnership with Google.
Founded in 2017 by Ohad Elhelo and Ori Cohen, AUI has spent eight years developing Apollo-1. This neuro-symbolic architecture combines neural and symbolic reasoning to achieve deterministic, policy-compliant, and fluent task execution. The company says this approach solves a long-standing challenge in AI — enabling conversational systems to perform reliable, real-world actions such as bookings, payments, and registrations.
While open-ended dialogue from large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini has become widespread, AUI argues that these systems lack the reliability needed for enterprise-grade, task-oriented deployments. Apollo-1 aims to fill that gap by encoding procedural knowledge directly, while leveraging neural components for perception, understanding, and language generation.
The company’s backers describe Apollo-1 as ushering in a new era of conversational AI for B2B, emphasizing reliability, determinism, and compliance alongside linguistic fluency. The technology is already being deployed within Fortune 500 organizations, with general availability expected to follow after current enterprise implementations.
AUI employs 45 people and counts among its early investors notable figures, including Vertex Pharmaceuticals founder Joshua Boger, UKG Chairman Aron Ain, and former IBM President Jim Whitehurst. The company continues to expand its team and is actively hiring for multiple positions listed at AUI.io.
KEY QUOTES:
“There’s a reason everyone knows the names ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini. But there’s still almost no example of a major enterprise successfully deploying reliable conversational agents at scale. LLM-based agents work well in open dialogue, but they’re not reliable enough for serious task-oriented deployments.”
Ohad Elhelo, Co-Founder and CEO, AUI
“LLM-based open-ended dialogue represents the B2C framework of conversational AI, while neuro-symbolic task-oriented dialogue ushers in the B2B era, where reliability, determinism, and policy adherence matter as much as fluency.”
Gideon Argov, Managing Partner, New Era Capital
“I have seen some of today’s top AI leaders walk away with their heads spinning after interacting with Apollo-1. This was a small bridge financing that came together in under a week, ahead of major announcements planned for later this year.”
Chris Varelas, Co-Founder, Redwood Capital, and Advisor to the CEO, AUI
