Narwhal Labs raises GBP £20 million for DeepBlue OS
Narwhal Labs has raised £20 million from UK investors and launched DeepBlue OS, a communications platform for organisations that need automated customer communications.
According to the company's background information, the funding came from more than 70 UK investors, including Jonathan Swann, former Director of CFC Underwriting. The Bristol-based company says the platform is designed to handle customer and citizen interactions across voice, SMS, email and WhatsApp.
DeepBlue OS is designed to manage inbound and outbound communications, along with follow-up tasks, through what Narwhal Labs describes as a unified AI layer. It is intended to handle work such as answering enquiries, qualifying contacts, booking appointments, requesting documents, routing requests and managing follow-up workflows without human intervention.
The business is targeting sectors where record-keeping and oversight are important, including housing, financial services, insurance, government and retail. Each action taken by an agent is auditable through what the company calls a Glass Box Architecture, allowing organisations to review and trace decisions.
Utility model
Narwhal Labs is positioning the platform as an alternative to AI deployments that often involve long implementation periods and significant upfront spending. Customers pay based on usage, with no setup costs, minimum commitment or long-term contracts.
The system can also operate in more than 50 languages and across multiple jurisdictions without needing to be rebuilt. The same infrastructure can support high-volume outbound communications for large organisations and inbound communications for smaller firms.
Three main agents sit at the core of the platform: an inbound agent that acts as a round-the-clock receptionist, a lead and case responder that follows up on new enquiries or requests in under two minutes, and an outbound agent for calling and messaging at scale.
A built-in builder and pre-configured templates allow customers to create or adapt agents for specific uses. DeepBlue OS can also connect to existing CRM, case management and account management systems through API integrations.
Regulated markets
Narwhal Labs says the platform has ISO 27001 and SOC 2 certifications and is designed for organisations operating under strict compliance requirements. It says the system meets GDPR, TCPA and OFCOM requirements and can be deployed within ten minutes.
The platform is available both as a native deployment and as a white-label product for telecoms operators, platform partners and enterprise channel partners, allowing other businesses to incorporate the software into their own products and services.
Luke Sartain, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Narwhal Labs, said: "Enterprise-grade AI should not be the exclusive preserve of organisations with eight-figure technology budgets and two-year implementation timelines. The level of backing we've seen reflects a growing recognition that this technology is no longer optional - it's foundational to how organisations operate. The same autonomous infrastructure that a global financial institution needs to manage thousands of daily interactions is the same infrastructure a 20-person firm needs to stop missing calls. We built DeepBlue OS as a utility - you switch it on, you pay for what you use, and it works. The security, compliance, and auditability that government and regulated enterprise demand are not optional extras. They are the foundation everything else is built on," Sartain said.
Jonathan Swann, investor and former Director of CFC Underwriting, said: "What stood out about Narwhal Labs is that it's providing an infrastructure that solves a clear commercial problem today, rather than creating experimental AI concepts. Every organisation loses revenue through missed or delayed responses, and this is scalable AI to solve that. The fact it can be deployed quickly, without the usual complexity, makes it highly compelling," Swann added.