In his late twenties, Jack Williams left a comfortable finance job in London and retreated to his mum's cottage in west Wales to build an an AI-based start up. That company he started in Cardigan, Ceredigion, has now been sold for millions of pounds, as part of the increasingly lucrative esports market. Jack, 30, said his mum was supportive of the idea of him starting his own company, but his dad was more wary, saying he had given up "good career prospects to do what exactly?" The company, iTero, uses artificial intelligence (AI) that "acts as a coach" for players of the popular game League of Legends to get feedback on their gameplay.
It has now been bought by the esports team GiantX in a "multi-million deal". When Jack started the company in 2021 he admitted it had “almost failed within six months”. The business model initially targeted the best players, which created “a very small market” of professional gamers who did not need extra coaching.
“I thought it was all over. I told my dad that he might have been right – this was a big risk,” he said, adding that he was “incredibly stressed”. He changed his target market to anyone looking to improve at the game, and the business grew from there.
After graduating with a degree in mathematical finance from Aberystwyth University he worked as a data scientist for the banking company HSBC. "This new term kept coming up, artificial intelligence. I absolutely fell in love with it," he said.
He later moved to London,.