OpenAI alum moves into ChatGPT maker’s old office in push to serve UK’s fintechs
A tech firm founded by OpenAI alumni has set up shop in the ChatGPT maker’s old office as it sets its sights on serving the UK’s top fintechs, Morning Wire can reveal.
Dust, an AI platform founded by former OpenAI and Stripe engineers Stanislas Polo and Gabriel Hubert, has taken a lease at the Fora Building on 221 Pentonville Road in King’s Cross.
The building was home to OpenAI’s first international office in 2024 before the $850bn tech giant inked an agreement for a permanent residence at Regent Quarter, slated to open in early 2027.
The office marks the first formal step for UK expansion for Dust after being founded and headquartered in Paris since 2023 and establishing a physical presence in San Francisco in 2024.
A formal entrance to the UK became a company priority in the first half of 2026, Morning Wire understands. UK fintechs Truelayer and Paddle are already understood to be a part of its client base.
The firm helps companies build and deploy custom AI assistants and specialised digital agents for their own teams and is hoping to sweep up the nation’s leading fintechs as customers.
In May 2026 Dust completed a $40m funding round led by Sequoia Capital and Abstract.
Gabriel Hubert, co-founder and chief executive of Dust, told Morning Wire: “The UK is one of only three countries where we have an office, alongside France and the US. That is the clearest signal I can give you about how much this market matters to us.”
He added the plan was to “scale quickly with several hires in the coming weeks”.
“Our goal is to build a full-stack UK team, not just salespeople parachuting in from Paris.”
Dust will join a growing cluster of tech firms in the Kings Cross area, including Databricks, Google Deepmind, Wayve, Meta and soon to be OpenAI.
The one-mile radius – dubbed the Knowledge Quarter – has become infamous for hosting top global academic, research and scientific names. In the space of a month this year, AI firms signed nearly 40,000 sq ft of London office space with Anthropic’s 158,000 sq ft site leading the pack.