Saif Al-Ibadi

Please note: These bios are autogenerated and designed to function like a wikipedia page NOT a sales page. If something is factually incorrect we are happy to update or take down.

Saif Al-Ibadi is a British-Iraqi engineer and the co-founder of Locai, a London-based deep-tech startup building infrastructure that moves AI model inference from the cloud onto end-user devices. The company targets SaaS and desktop AI vendors looking to replace variable per-API-call cloud bills with fixed, on-device compute, and to keep customer data inside the customer's own perimeter.

Before Locai, Saif co-founded SmallSpark Space Systems with Joseph Ward, where he served as Director of AI and Optimisation Technologies. There, he applied machine learning to rocket propulsion design, including work on the UK Ministry of Defence's first generatively designed rocket engine and AI-optimised solid rocket motors. That experience in deploying AI systems in resource-constrained environments — including a contract with B2Space that cut bandwidth costs by over 90% by running AI agents at the edge of space — directly informs Locai's approach to edge inference.

At Locai, Saif and Ward are building an OpenAI-compatible endpoint that lets companies migrate existing applications onto on-device models with a one-line code change. The company joined the initial cohort of the Google for Startups Accelerator in 2025 and has now raised £1 million in pre-seed funding led by Fuel Ventures to scale go-to-market.