Etiq AI, a female-founded London-based startup, has raised €900K in seed funding. The round was led by GapMinder VC and follows £1 million in grant funding from InnovateUK. With this new backing, Etiq AI has secured a total of £2.5 million to date. The funds will fuel product development, expand the team, and scale commercial marketing into 2025.
The company aims to redefine how data scientists test, debug, and deploy machine learning models. With its AI-powered debugging tools, Etiq AI wants to reduce development time while ensuring fairness, accuracy, and compliance in the age of AI.
Founded in 2019 by Iris Anson and Raluca Crisan, Etiq AI started with a bold mission: simplify and enhance machine learning (ML) pipeline development. Both founders bring deep experience to the table. Raluca, a seasoned data scientist with 15 years of experience, was previously Director of Data Science at Merkle and played a key role at Aquila Insights before its acquisition. She also co-founded another ML startup and helped scale a mobile marketing firm to NASDAQ listing.
Iris, meanwhile, holds a Mathematics and Business Studies degree from Warwick and earned an AI certification from Oxford’s Saïd Business School. Before Etiq, she successfully built her first tech company from scratch, leading all aspects from sales to tech development. Her business instincts were shaped early by her family’s entrepreneurial roots.
The idea behind Etiq AI was born from their shared frustration. Existing tools weren’t built for modern data scientists. Debugging was slow and painful. Most available platforms either borrowed from software engineering or missed key ML workflow stages. So, they built Etiq to fill this gap with a laser focus on real data science needs.
Building Smarter AI Testing Tools
Etiq AI emerged from Zinc VC’s Mission 2 accelerator with an initial focus on reducing bias in AI. Over time, its scope widened. Today, it addresses one of the most time-consuming challenges in AI development—debugging and productionising ML pipelines.
Their flagship product, Data Science Copilot, launched in March 2025, is designed to cut debugging time from weeks to minutes. The platform offers deep code visibility, recommends targeted tests, and features RCA (Root Cause Analysis) agents to fix code issues fast. It also includes lineage tracking and test recommendations to boost transparency and reliability.
Etiq AI doesn’t just analyse models; it evaluates how data and code interact in real time. By treating both as first-class elements, it gives developers tools to monitor and manage AI systems more effectively. A free 30-day trial helps new users explore the platform’s full capabilities.
While competing with players like Fiddler, Arize, NannyML, and Evidently, Etiq AI’s strength lies in its focus on post-training validation—a step many overlook. Most tools concentrate on training or data labelling. Etiq, however, works at the “last mile,” ensuring that models are robust, explainable, and fair before deployment.
Beyond just selling software, Etiq AI is building a full-stack ecosystem for AI quality assurance. With global regulations tightening around AI fairness, transparency, and safety, this approach is more important than ever.
GapMinder VC shares this vision. Robert Herscovici, Investment Director, said, “There’s a real need for scalable AI testing tools that help developers debug in real-time and uncover hidden issues. Etiq provides exactly that. Their focus on fairness and reliability puts them at the forefront of responsible AI development.”
Co-founder Iris Anson added, “We’re thrilled to complete this funding round with GapMinder VC. Their support brings us closer to our goal of becoming the go-to platform for AI model testing and debugging. This is just the beginning.”
As companies across industries rush to deploy AI systems, the demand for reliable tools like Etiq’s Copilot will only grow. With its experienced team, strong funding, and a unique market position, Etiq AI is poised to lead the charge toward safer, smarter, and more trustworthy AI development.
