Our belief
The reason is simple: every major AI tool sends your data to overseas servers. For organisations handling sensitive client records, legally protected information, or confidential research, that's not a trade-off they can make.
That's why we built Selma. Founded on an organisation's values, installed in their building, trained on their knowledge, and never connected to the internet.
It's AI that never leaves the building.
Large enterprise. Big government. Premium healthcare. The organisations that don't fit have been left to wait: legal aid centres, ombudsman bodies, Indigenous data custodians, sustainability-first companies. Organisations that would benefit enormously from AI, if only it were available on their terms.
Selma was built for the gap they left behind.
Selma is an alternative AI solution. One that begins with your values, not your data. We understand your beliefs, identify the right use cases, and install a custom instance on your premises, fine-tuned to your knowledge and principles. Every contribution is attributed, and every response reflects who you are.
Data sovereignty is the floor.
Selma is the ceiling.
EthicAI installs the hardware on your premises, works with your team to embed your ethical constitution in the model, and sets up attribution tracking for every staff contribution. Your team accesses everything through a simple browser on your internal network.
There's a safer way to use AI.
It's called Selma.
Pre-seed round · Moving to close Q3 2026
If you want to be part of it, register your interest below.
Register interestInside Selma
Organisations Selma is designed for
01
Organisations receiving highly personal disclosures and bound by strict investigation protocols. Selma drafts correspondence, surfaces relevant policy, and supports case management without a single byte of complainant data leaving the building.
02
Legal aid services operating under strict professional privilege and privacy obligations. Selma assists with document drafting, research, and client intake, grounded entirely in the organisation's own legal knowledge base.
03
Disability service providers navigating complex, frequently updated scheme rules with highly sensitive participant information. Selma provides instant, accurate guidance drawn from the provider's own policies and the NDIS framework.
04
Agencies handling some of the most legally protected information in the public sector. Selma supports caseworkers with document preparation and policy lookup in an environment where data sovereignty is non-negotiable.
05
Organisations advising government on sensitive matters including national security, budget, and social policy. The knowledge they produce is too valuable and too sensitive to feed into an external model. Selma keeps it sovereign.
06
Regulatory bodies managing confidential disciplinary and complaint processes. Selma supports investigation and decision-making workflows while keeping the identity of all parties entirely within the organisation's walls.
Founded on your values.
Installed in your building.
Never connected to the internet.
Who We Are
EthicAI is a Sydney-based AI ethics and governance consultancy built on a simple conviction: AI adoption should never compromise an organisation's values, its legal obligations, or its control of its own data. We joined the Australian Government delegation to the Global AI Impact Summit in Delhi, presented at the Parliamentary Innovation Showcase in Canberra, and partner with MIT Sloan on the EPOCH human capability framework. We have also built a genuine public audience, passing ten million TikTok views in under a year. Few teams sit credibly at both ends of this conversation, the policy table and the public feed.
Selma is what that expertise has become. We work inside the environments Selma is built for, which means we understand the constraints from the ground up rather than consulting on them from a distance. Our first production deployment is underway with a state government ombudsman office, giving us a live reference site rather than a prototype. The company is led by co-founders Kara Bombell and Katriel Healy, with Chief Product Officer Simon Brock building Selma full time.
"The next great populist movement... it won't be anti-immigration or anti-globalisation. It'll be anti-AI... This is an enormous opportunity."
Scott Galloway, Professor of Marketing, NYU Stern
FAQs
Selma is a working system. The hardware platform is operational and we are establishing our first pilot deployment with a state government ombudsman office. The pre-seed round funds the completion of that pilot and our go-to-market infrastructure.
We are raising $500,000 in a pre-seed round. If you would like details on the structure, get in touch directly.
Selma is built for organisations that handle sensitive, legally protected, or commercially valuable information and cannot use cloud-based AI tools. Initial targets include ombudsman bodies, community legal centres, NDIS providers, child protection agencies, and policy advisory organisations across Australia.
The underlying models are open source. The advantage is the Knowledge Contribution Model, the deployment architecture, and the domain expertise to implement it for complex organisations with real governance requirements. Microsoft and others are building for large enterprise markets. Selma is built for the organisations they ignore.
Four things: completing and documenting the first pilot, developing sales and marketing infrastructure, pursuing IP protection for the Knowledge Contribution Model, and securing the talent needed to scale delivery. The timeline: pilot complete Q3 2026, go-to-market Q4 2026, IP filing in parallel.
When staff use and refine Selma, they are teaching it. The Knowledge Contribution Model tracks exactly what each individual contributes to the model's growing capability, weighted by impact on performance. This gives organisations a mechanism to understand, and reward, who is actually building their AI. No equivalent system exists in the industry, and we are pursuing IP protection for it.