The software testing start-up Quality quality Quality (Qu-qu-Qu) has secured $32 billion in seed funding, valuing the company at $82 billion. They were reportedly able to raise the large sum of money by removing many implemented A.I. features in their platform.
"We received so much funding in past seed rounds by just putting 'A.I.' all over our marketing materials. But the well is starting to dry up. Instead of waiting for investors to completely back out, we decided it was better to get proactive. A common piece of feedback we received from investors is that they don't like how much we lose each quarter. Since every A.I. feature we produce adds an operational cost on the backend, removing those features estimated enough savings to bringing the company into profitability within 3 weeks. It's more of an accounting trick than a technology change."
Before announcing the seed round, every reference to A.I. was removed from their website. Comparing today's version from last month shows A.I. used to be mentioned every 6 words.
When asked if their customers will be disappointed with the reduced functionality, a spokesperson replied, "No one used them anyway."