Atheni Raises £350,000 to Move Organisations Beyond Surface-Level Use of AI

Atheni, the AI adoption company founded by Mackenzie Howe and Louise Ballard, has raised £350,000 to build a platform that scales a proven methodology for using AI well across organisations.

Atheni developed its methodology through two years of client work before transforming it into a scalable platform focused on delivering personalised, in-work guidance.

The company is backed by angel investors including Alex Chesterman and is also supported by Innovate UK.

The funding comes as many organisations struggle to translate widespread access to AI tools into meaningful workplace capability. While employees increasingly use AI for basic tasks, effective application to judgement, decision-making, and higher-quality outcomes remains limited.

Atheni focuses on embedding AI guidance directly into day-to-day workflows, helping teams build practical capability continuously rather than relying on one-off training sessions.

Over the past two years, Atheni has tested its approach across sectors including education, manufacturing, financial services, and private equity, reporting adoption rates above 90% within 90 days.

The new funding will support development of the Atheni Accelerator, a browser-based platform that works alongside tools such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Anthropic’s Claude, and Microsoft Copilot, providing role-specific AI guidance and tools for organisations to measure workforce AI capability.

Mackenzie Howe said that while many AI companies focus on building better tools, Atheni focuses on helping employees use AI to think more clearly, challenge assumptions, and improve decision-making in everyday work.

Louise Ballard added that most people still underuse AI’s capabilities, and that Atheni aims to help teams apply AI more effectively within existing workflows.

Alex Chesterman said that Atheni identified early that simply providing access to AI tools does not fundamentally change how people work. He added that the growing gap between employees who can effectively use AI and those who cannot is becoming a major business challenge, and described Atheni as one of the few companies addressing the problem at meaningful depth and scale.

Atheni is rolling out its platform with existing clients ahead of a planned funding round later this year to support broader expansion.

The company is also among a relatively small number of fully female-led teams in the UK to secure equity investment, at a time when only 1.75% of UK equity funding went to such founders in 2025, according to Beauhurst.