Rightbrain AI, a Newcastle-founded tech start-up, has raised £3m ($4m) in a round led by PXN Ventures to help SMEs and mid-market firms overcome the barriers preventing them from deploying AI.
The platform helps B2B services businesses, such as marketing agencies, recruitment firms and professional services firms, build and deploy AI agents without the overhead of full-scale digital transformation.
Rightbrain acts as a software bridge, enabling access to leading AI models, including those from OpenAI, Anthropic and Google, within their existing combination of tools, such as CRMs or Google Workspace. Teams can then use AI without changing the way they work.
This also means that repetitive work like researching leads, processing onboarding information, analysing customer feedback, and reviewing compliance documentation becomes faster and more consistent.
Many organisations using readily-available AI tools like Claude and ChatGPT face challenges around compliance, data security and integration with legacy systems. Until now, the only solution appeared to be investing in costly infrastructure and lengthy proof-of-concepts to build bespoke AI tools. Rightbrain’s platform is purpose-built to provide such organisations a path forward that is both secure and compliant.
Specialists work directly with customers to understand their needs, then deliver agents on an ‘agents-as-a-service’ basis, ensuring the right AI solutions are built and that they improve over time.
The business is also expanding its partner network, allowing technology consultancies and digital agencies to use the platform as white-label AI infrastructure. They can therefore build and deploy tailored agents for their own clients without developing the underlying systems from scratch. Rightbrain says this can shorten the time it takes for partners to bring AI products to market by six to nine months.
The £3m investment round was led by NPIF II – PXN Equity Finance, which is managed by PXN Ventures as part of the Northern Powerhouse Investment Fund II. Existing investors Salica and NYDIG also participated, alongside four new angel investors.
Rightbrain will use the funding to make strategic hires in order to support increasing customer demand and scale the partner programme, both in the UK and internationally. The business will also deploy its own tool to identify, qualify and convert new customers, and maximise efficiency at every step of its operations.
Rightbrain was founded in June 2023 by Peter Cheyne and Matt Wells, who together have over 30 years of experience in delivering software for the world’s leading enterprises and operating in regulated environments. Peter previously co-founded Partnerize, which he scaled to over 150 employees and Bottlepay, a regulated fintech that was acquired by NYDIG in 2021. Matt brings expertise in large-scale infrastructure and enterprise AI deployment, having played a key role in the internal rollout of GitHub Copilot following Microsoft’s acquisition.
Peter Cheyne, Rightbrain AI co-founder, said: “Businesses are under pressure to adopt AI, but many are finding that the real challenge isn’t accessing the technology but actually deploying it safely and effectively. We’re helping traditional B2B services evolve into AI-native businesses by embedding agents into their core workflows. This removes friction, giving teams a single platform to build, deploy and govern intelligent tools without needing to rebuild their infrastructure or hire specialist developers.
“We’ve built a foundation for this platform to succeed, working with companies to pilot the tool, and now it’s time to launch it in earnest. This investment from PXN Ventures and our existing backers will allow us to take our platform to more businesses and help them realise the value of AI without the costly transformation.”
Andy Barrow, Managing Director at PXN Ventures, said: “Pete and Matt have a strong track record of building technology businesses in complex, regulated environments, which is exactly where Rightbrain sits. As companies deploy AI at scale and the AI ecosystem matures, the need to balance robust infrastructure with governance, compliance and operational rigour becomes increasingly more important.
“We’re excited to back Rightbrain as it helps businesses across the UK and beyond unlock the potential of AI, and we look forward to supporting the team through this next phase of growth.”
NPIF II – PXN Equity Finance can provide investments in the NPIF II area with a primary focus on the North West regions of Cheshire, Cumbria, Greater Manchester, Lancashire and Merseyside.
The £660m Northern Powerhouse Investment Fund II (NPIFII) covers the entire North of England and provides loans from £25k to £2m and equity investment up to £5m to help a range of small and medium sized businesses to start up, scale up or stay ahead.
The purpose of the Northern Powerhouse Investment Fund II is to drive sustainable economic growth by supporting innovation and creating local opportunity for new and growing businesses across the North of England. The Northern Powerhouse Investment Fund II will increase the supply and diversity of early-stage finance for the North’s smaller businesses, providing funds to firms that might otherwise not receive investment and help to break down barriers in access to finance.
