# Alistair McLeay

> Alistair McLeay is the Wellington-raised, Cambridge-trained machine learning engineer who co-founded Grw AI, a San Francisco startup building Taylor, an AI sales teammate that coaches and lifts entire sales teams. He shipped product to a million Xero customers, wrote a master's thesis training LLM agents through self-play, built two software companies, and raised Silicon Valley money after a now-legendary poker game. He serves as Co-Founder and Co-CEO.

- **Role:** Co-Founder & Co-CEO at Grw AI
- **Organizations:** Grw AI, Xero, University of Cambridge
- **From:** Wellington, New Zealand
- **Nationality:** New Zealander
- **Education:** MPhil, Machine Learning & Machine Intelligence (thesis: training LLM agents through self-play), University of Cambridge
- **Known for:** Co-founded Grw AI and serves as Co-CEO, building Taylor, an AI sales teammate, Raised a reported US$2.2M / NZ$2.4M from Silicon Valley venture firms and angels including alumni of Slack, SalesLoft and Salesforce, Shipped product to a million Xero customers as a Technical Product Manager

## Career timeline

- **pre-2022** — Technical Product Manager at Xero, owning the Xero Identity Platform; shipped product to a million customers
- **2022-2023** — Completed a master's in Machine Learning & Machine Intelligence at the University of Cambridge, training LLM agents through self-play
- **before Grw AI** — Founded two software companies, one in New Zealand and one in the United States (Gondola and Voyce discussed in interviews)
- **2023** — Co-founded Grw AI in September with Alex McNaughten and Daniel Ash
- **2024** — Raised a reported NZ$2.4M / US$2.2M seed round led by Silicon Valley investors
- **2025-2026** — Leading Grw AI from San Francisco, building Taylor, the AI sales teammate; team of around 17

## Achievements

- Co-founded Grw AI and serves as Co-CEO, building Taylor, an AI sales teammate
- Raised a reported US$2.2M / NZ$2.4M from Silicon Valley venture firms and angels including alumni of Slack, SalesLoft and Salesforce
- Shipped product to a million Xero customers as a Technical Product Manager
- Earned a master's in Machine Learning & Machine Intelligence from the University of Cambridge, with a thesis on LLM self-play
- Built two software companies before age 30

## Latest updates

- **2024-12** — Grw AI announced a reported NZ$2.4M / US$2.2M seed round led by U.S. venture capitalists and Silicon Valley angels
- **2025-10** — Featured on the Startup Theatre Podcast episode 'The All-In Founder: How One Bet Sparked a New Superhuman AI'

## Links

- Website: https://alistairmcleay.com/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alistairmcleay/
- Twitter/X: https://x.com/alistairmcleay

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Profile page: https://yespress.io/alistair-mcleay
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-06-25