London Teenager Secures $1 Million for AI Beam

Beem, an AI Native Computer, is designed to make our lives easier.

London teenager, Toby Brown, secured a $1 million investment for his AI startup Beem. At only 16, he deferred his GCSEs and travelled to Silicon Valley to focus on his AI venture, which started in his own bedroom.

Describing the change as ‘surreal’, Brown said, “When I go back to London, people recognise me in the street… that’s bizarre”

The investment comes from South Park Commons, a San Francisco-based venture capital fund, in return for a 7% stake in his company.

His AI startup, Beem, is a Native Computer. ‘There’s so much grunt work that goes into using a computer… Beem is an AI that goes out and does all that for you,” said Brown. “I could say ‘Find a video of my grandma’, and [Beem] would understand who my grandma is… go out and find it for me.”

Beem works on a proactive concept. It learns from the user’s patterns to anticipate needs and act accordingly. It has a heavy focus on user experience, drawing inspiration from Apple’s product philosophy: starting with the end user’s experience and then working in the technology.

Brown discovered his love for coding at a young age. He built his first computer at 7 and was the youngest employee of Hack Club at just 13. Brown even created his own version of ChatGPT through self-teaching, before realising AI interfaces need reimagining - Beem.

After returning from San Francisco, Brown plans to continue working on Beem, hoping to release it to the public in 2026.