Yousuf Khan has been a CIO five times over, a Partner at Ridge Ventures, where he backed a portfolio that included a $250 million exit. Now, he’s doing something he swore he’d never do: becoming a founder. His new company, Clario, is tackling one of the most overlooked problems in enterprise AI – the explosion of unstructured data clogging file stores, corrupting AI outputs, and quietly undermining every AI project CIOs are trying to run. 

In this GBx Founder Spotlight, Yousuf shares what finally convinced him to make the leap, why the timing has never been better, and what decades of watching founders get it right (and wrong) have taught him about building from scratch.

 

If I weren’t a founder, I would be…

‘A history professor. I’m a big history lover and love people’s stories. Being able to teach history would be an absolute joy for me.’ 

The one piece of advice I keep coming back to is…

‘Don’t overthink what you want to build. The path is not linear – it will zig and zag. The big piece of advice is to keep moving forward, despite that.’ 

One thing about entrepreneurship that people often underestimate is…

‘How lonely it can be.’ 

One tool I couldn’t live without is…

‘Any music app. I need music in my life.’ 

 

You’ve described your career as a series of accidental pivots. How did the path from CIO to VC to founder actually come about? 

‘I call myself an accidental CIO. I was studying Business Management at King’s and got a summer job at an internet company. The company had been just an idea a year before, and suddenly it was several hundred people getting ready to go public. I thought – how the hell did this happen? That got me curious about how companies are built, and I never really lost that curiosity. 

I ended up becoming CIO five times over, but throughout all of it, I was always talking to early-stage companies, helping a founder with a pitch deck, giving feedback, becoming an early customer, etc. Those were companies like Zoom, Slack, Datadog, Moveworks etc. As a result, I got on the radar of a number of VCs and eventually became a General Partner at Ridge Ventures. 

After five years and a portfolio that included a $250 million exit, I had to make a decision. I could stay in venture, or I could build something of my own. I looked around and thought: if I were a CIO in 2026, running an AI project, what problems would I hit? 

I spoke to hundreds of CIO friends, and some of the problems I experienced ten years ago still haven’t been solved. That’s why we started Clario.’ 

Tell us about Clario. Where did the idea come from, and what problem are you solving? 

‘We’re building a solution that cleans, organises, and maintains unstructured data in a company – the files and documents in content stores across the enterprise. The explosion of unstructured data caused by tools like ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and Copilot means the volume of data being created is now exponential. Four years ago, creating a document could take days. Now you type a prompt, and a fifty-page document lands in your shared drive in seconds.  

This creates three problems: First, token costs go through the roof when a model has to process unclean data. Second, outdated responses – bad data quality produces bad results, and in agentic workflows, a failed automation is very unforgiving. People lose trust quickly, and AI projects stall. Third, there are processing and inference costs that nobody’s really managing. 

We discovered terabytes of garbage files and MP3s just sitting in enterprise systems, backed up, costing money, and causing problems. It’s the equivalent of having a large laser disc collection without a laser disc player. 

We jokingly refer to ourselves as the Marie Kondo of enterprise data. We want to spark joy in your file system.’ 

You’ve said you’d never become a founder, so what changed your mind? 

‘The first thing was conviction. Having been involved with companies early, whether that’s as a customer, advisor or an early employee at a scaleup, and seeing those relationships produce real results, I thought there must be problems I feel equally strongly about. The second thing was AI. What you can do with the underlying technology today, and how fast you can do it, is groundbreaking. That really brought me to the place where I thought this was the right time for me. 

It also helps that I’m one of the few people who have made the full shift – from operating executive at public companies, to early-stage employee to investor, to founder. All of those lessons have prepared me as much as one can be.’

You’re building Clario in the US. What advantages would you say the US ecosystem offers? 

‘The ecosystem is very rich and has established itself over multiple decades. Yes, there’s capital, but it’s also about the community and the level of collaboration you get amongst the founder community, which is very active and genuinely helps. And the talent is everywhere, but there’s a richness of it here that is hard to escape. 

That said, I do hope to set up an operation in the UK sooner rather than later. I’m still a proud Brit and the UK ecosystem has real momentum right now.’ 

Now you’ve taken the leap into entrepreneurship, what do you wish you’d known before you started, and what advice can you share with aspiring founders? 

‘There are three things that come to mind. Firstly, do the groundwork. Build conviction in the business before you raise capital. Speak to people, go deep into the problem and understand it from every angle. You can never do enough of this! 

Secondly, if you’re not excited about the business, nobody else will be either. It’s not enough to think it’s a good idea. Do you want to knock down walls for this? Conviction, and sometimes frustration, are very powerful motivators. 

Lastly, be strategic about your fundraise. Too many people don’t think hard enough about who the right VCs are, what their investment criteria are, and what stage and sector they focus on. Treat the fundraise as a representation of how you think strategically about the first couple of years.’ 

Do you have any specific advice for British founders looking to build in the US? 

‘Keep in mind there’s no Nando’s or Pizza Express, which is a major deficit. I’d move back to London just for those. 

On a more serious note, be part of the community. That’s a big reason why ecosystems like GBx have been so successful. Learning from other people, sharing the lessons, and making the connections will be so helpful. 

And be deliberate and mentally prepared for the grind. A lot of people will be excited about your idea, but it may not be venture backable. So, doing the groundwork and making connections will be so helpful.’ 

Looking at your journey with Clario so far, who deserves more credit than they’ve received? 

‘Our lead investors, Saad Siqqiui and Farooq Abbasi. Those two led the round, and they were persistent, supportive, and encouraging from the very beginning. They gave me the confidence to go build this company.’

 

Yousuf Khan is the founder and CEO of Clario. He is a former Partner at Ridge Ventures and a five-time CIO at companies including Automation Anywhere, Moveworks, Pure Storage  (NYSE:PSTG) and Qualys (NASDAQ:QLYS).
By Hannah Holland