Riplo Raises €2.6M for AI Consulting OS

London-based startup Riplo has successfully exited stealth mode, announcing a €2.6 million pre-Seed funding round. The investment, led by Cherry Ventures with significant participation from Blue Lion Capital, aims to revolutionize the consulting industry by developing an agentic operating system. The round also saw backing from notable figures, including the founders of QuantumBlack (McKinsey’s AI division), and senior professionals from firms like McKinsey, BCG, OpenAI, Apple, Goldman Sachs, and Hg Capital, underscoring strong industry confidence in Riplo's vision.

The consulting sector, a global market valued at approximately $1 trillion, has historically lagged in digital transformation. Riplo's co-founder and CEO, Tobias Haefele, articulated this gap, stating, “The consulting industry is currently running on the digital equivalent of a typewriter. You cannot achieve agentic speed inside a slide deck designed in the 90s. We aren’t building another chatbot; we are building the interface where the next generation of strategic analyses actually happens.” This sentiment highlights the critical need for tools that can facilitate true AI-human collaboration at speed.

Founded in 2025 by Tobias Haefele, Oliver Scott, and Zack Zornitta, Riplo is developing a comprehensive tooling layer. This platform is designed to enable seamless native collaboration between human consultants and AI agents across all stages of consulting workflows, from infrastructure to user interface. The founding team brings a unique blend of deep consulting experience and cutting-edge AI product development expertise, having previously worked at firms like QuantumBlack and Hg Capital.

The company argues that while AI has significantly advanced knowledge work in fields such as software engineering, law, and investment banking, the consulting profession remains constrained by legacy tools. Current software, built for manual, human-centric processes like slide creation and data modeling, is inefficient for both users and AI agents. Riplo's approach contrasts sharply with traditional software by treating AI not as an external assistant, but as an integrated collaborator. Its interface allows AI agents to draft, structure, and test workstreams directly within a live, unified environment alongside consultants.

This innovative approach shifts consultants from a 'building' mindset to a 'curating' role, fostering faster iteration cycles for deliverables, narrative development, and client impact assessment. The substantial pre-Seed funding will be instrumental in advancing Riplo's mission. The capital injection will support the expansion of its engineering team, deepen collaborations with design partners, and accelerate the development of its agentic operating system.

Christian Meermann, Partner at Cherry Ventures, expressed enthusiasm for the venture, noting, “Professional services is one of the largest and least disrupted markets in the world, and AI is finally changing that. Riplo is building a deep, vertical-specific platform for the world’s most elite firms, and Tobias, Oliver, and Zack are exactly the team to do it. Cherry is proud to back them.” The company's focus on a vertical-specific platform for elite firms positions it to capture significant market share in a sector ripe for technological disruption.