D'Aloisio started the company when he was 15 and quickly attracted investors, including Hong Kong billionaire Li Ka-Shing and Hollywood stars Ashton Kutcher and Stephen Fry.
In late 2011 he released a prototype app called Trimmit and secured financial backing from Horizons Ventures, the investment vehicle of billionaire Ka-shing, and spent much of 2012 working with specialist NLP engineers and angel investors to improve the app and re-release it as Summly.