Mike Murchison graduated from the University of Toronto in 2012 with a degree in cognitive science, psychology and human-computer interaction. In 2014 he and David Hariri started Volley, a social app.
In early 2016 they wound Volley down and let the team go. Murchison had worked as a frontline tech support agent, and the two founders chose customer support as the problem to solve next.
By summer 2016 the company had relaunched as Ada, with Medium, Kik and Wattpad as early customers. A seed round followed in October 2016, and $2.5 million was announced in July 2017 from Bessemer and Version One.
Accel led a $44 million Series B in March 2020. Spark Capital and Tiger Global led a $130 million Series C in May 2021 at a valuation of $1.2 billion.