Magic AI CEO pitches King Charles after innovation award

Magic AI’s King Charles meeting came after the London startup won a King’s Award for Enterprise in the innovation category, giving CEO Varun Bhanot a few seconds at St James’s Palace to explain an AI fitness product to the monarch. The company makes a smart mirror that gives users training tips, a consumer hardware pitch that had to be compressed into a royal handshake.

Bhanot, who is used to pitching the company, told Sifted that the setting raised the pressure. He said he was nervous, wearing a suit and tie in 31-degree heat, and standing among a crowd of award recipients. He compared the scene to technology executives dressing up for a formal political meeting.

The business details disclosed were limited. Magic AI is London-based, builds an AI-powered smart mirror for fitness coaching, and works with several well-known instructors, including former Olympian Asha Philip and former cricketer Alastair Cook. No revenue, funding, valuation, customer numbers or unit economics were disclosed.

What did Magic AI tell King Charles?

Bhanot said he stumbled slightly when the moment came to shake King Charles’s hand. According to Bhanot, he told the king the company worked in AI. When the king asked what kind, Bhanot said it was AI that helps people get fitter. Bhanot said King Charles then asked whether it was “good AI” and appeared to have some awareness of the company.

Bhanot had prepared one connection point that was less about the product and more about the audience. He told Sifted he had recently run the London Marathon to raise money for a charity of which King Charles is a patron. He also tried to explain that he had run the race wearing the company’s mirror as a costume, but said the king did not appear to follow that part of the story.

The encounter offers a small but useful reminder for founders: the standard demo-day pitch does not travel well into every room. Bhanot’s takeaway was to make the pitch even shorter than a normal elevator version and to focus on what the listener might care about, rather than defaulting to a sales script.

He also credited the people around him with making the exchange easier. One person nearby noticed a Pimm’s in the king’s hand despite the drink not appearing on the menu, which Bhanot said helped lighten the moment. Another award recipient beside him was discussing vacuum services for concrete, a comparison Bhanot joked may have made the AI fitness mirror sound more engaging.

For Magic AI, the most tangible commercial outcome mentioned was branding. Bhanot said the company will now be able to use the King’s Awards seal on its packaging. Asked whether he had considered recruiting the monarch as an ambassador, he joked that the seal made King Charles one “technically.”

This story draws on original reporting from Sifted.