Hundreds of employees from Builder.ai, one of the UK’s best-funded technology start-ups, gathered last summer in Vietnam for a lavish “off-site” company meeting.
At a five-star hotel in the centre of Ho Chi Minh City, they were treated to performances by local dancers and DJs. Chief executive and founder Sachin Dev Duggal, shadowed at times on the trip by a personal bodyguard, took to a stage to interview figures such as former Apple executive Tony Fadell and Serena Williams’s former tennis coach Patrick Mouratoglou.
There was much to celebrate. Just weeks earlier, Builder.ai had been valued at just over $1bn following a new $250mn investment round led by Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund. QIA had joined investors including Microsoft, SoftBank and Insight Partners, who had backed the start-up’s promise to use artificial intelligence to automate aspects of the expensive and labour-intensive task of building new apps.