Where AI-first founders grow.
We take parked ideas and turn them into shipped, funded companies. James and Louis — the operators behind Homemove, home.co.uk and homedata.co.uk — build alongside you for twelve weeks until investors are taking your call.
Pick your door.
One philosophy, four offerings. Whether you have a parked idea, want to learn how to ship, run a business that needs AI, or just need a real website — pick the door that fits.
Build and fund your company.
You bring the idea. James and Louis build alongside you for twelve weeks until the product is shipped and the round is closing.
Become AI-native in twelve weeks.
Twelve students, three pillars — Coding, Commercials, Investment. Real product shipped weekly with operators in the room every day.
Embed senior AI engineers.
Operator-led AI consultancy for UK businesses. We diagnose, build, and hand over a production system this quarter — not next year.
A site live this week, looked after every month.
Custom-built website on a stack you own — designed to spec, never templated. £999 to build, £99 a month to look after.
From notebook to cap table.
Bring us the seed of an idea. We’ll sharpen the wedge, build the foundations, shape the pitch, and open the doors. By the time you leave, you’re investable.
Apply to MoonlabsOperators in the room with you.
Sharpen the idea.
Find the wedge.
Most ideas die from being too broad. We sit with you to cut the surface area down to one wedge worth betting on. The one a buyer will actually pay for.
Code that compounds.
From day one.
You leave with real infrastructure, not a prototype. The same battle-tested stack that powers Homemove, home.co.uk and homedata.co.uk. Ready to scale the moment a user shows up.
What you get.
Define the idea
We turn fuzzy ambition into a sharp, testable wedge. The kind of idea you can defend on one slide.
Technical foundation
A production-grade stack you actually own. Same tools and patterns we run our own businesses on.
Pitch & investment
Deck, narrative, financials, data room. Investor-ready materials that survive real diligence.
HNWI introductions
When the round is right, we make warm introductions to the high-net-worth individuals in our network.
Operators, not advisors.
Every minute of Moonlabs is led by the two people who’ve actually done it. No associates. No slide-deck mentors.
Operator behind Homemove, home.co.uk and homedata.co.uk. Lives on the commercial and capital side: distribution, deals, and the high-net-worth network founders rarely reach on their own. Then ships code 18 hours a day around the conversations.
Operator behind Homemove, home.co.uk and homedata.co.uk. Owns the architecture and the technical line. Turns messy founder intuition into systems that scale, and keeps the build honest.
The senior operators on the ground with us. Phil scales the operational engine; Shivam shapes the funding model. Both compound onto what James and Louis ship every day.
Two decades of operational scale at Dell, GoDaddy and Foodhub. Trained AI-native by James and Louis — proof that the right mindset matters more than the year on your CV. Phil runs the operational engine: scaling delivery, optimising the workflows founders never see, and putting AI in every seam.
On the ground in London. Ex Deutsche Bank — 99th-percentile modeller. Shivam builds the financial models that survive investor diligence and makes your numbers actually stack up. He shapes the Investment pillar at the Academy and sits in on the awkward second meetings with founders during the round.
What you walk away with.
What we’ve built together.
A small, deliberate set of companies built alongside the founders we back. Here is the first, in their own words.
From grassroots to the global stage.
KickStats is the ultimate AI-powered platform for players, coaches, and scouts. Track. Analyse. Perform.
“James and Louis kickstarted Kickstats whilst scaling their own business. It was the kickstart we needed to take the idea to a product we can sell to customers and investors.”
Two more ways to work with us.
The Incubator is for founders building something new. If you are already in a business, or training to join one, there is a different door.
AI you actually put to work.
Senior AI engineers embedded in your existing business, in person, on a monthly retainer. We find where AI moves the most value, redesign the workflow, and ship the system that does it. James and Louis on every engagement — not a junior consultant.
The operators of tomorrow.
A twelve-week AI course built on three pillars — Coding, Commercials, Investment. Twelve students, real projects shipped weekly, James and Louis in the room. Built for people who want to do the work, not study it.
Three doors into Moonlabs.
Depending on who you are, the right entry point looks different. Pick the one that matches you.
Sending your child to Moonlabs.
What twelve weeks looks like, tuition, funding routes, and the honest answers we give parents at the kitchen table.
Hire, or sponsor a seat.
Hire from the cohort (no placement fee) or sponsor a seat — send an external student or your own employee through twelve weeks in Derby for £6,000.
Pre-seed AI deal flow.
Twelve AI companies, one day, forty seats in the room. Cohort deck previews from October.
Operators writing it down.
Twelve deliverables — the anatomy of a Moonlabs cohort portfolio
Every Moonlabs Academy graduate leaves with the same twelve artefacts. This essay walks through what each one looks like and why we chose it over the...
Why sponsoring an engineer through the Academy beats hiring one
For most UK companies in 2026, the cheapest way to get an AI-native engineer onto the team is not to hire one. It is to send someone you already have...
Why the Incubator charges a £999 commitment fee
We added a £999 commitment fee to the Incubator agreement in 2026. It is credited back in full against the success fee at round close — so if you rais...
The questions we get most.
What does Moonlabs actually do?
Three things, one philosophy. The Incubator partners with founders on 1% tech-for-equity, a 10% success fee on capital raised, and a £999 commitment fee on signing (credited back against the success fee at round close). The Academy is a twelve-week operator-led course in Derby teaching Coding, Commercials, and Investment. AI for business (a.k.a. Forward Deployment) is our embedded service — senior AI engineers sitting alongside your team to ship production AI inside your existing business.
Who is Moonlabs for?
Three audiences. Founders with an AI-flavoured operating business who want operators rather than allocators on the cap table. Students and early-career operators who want to learn how to build the way operators build, not how to study it. UK businesses that need senior AI engineering capacity without hiring a team.
Where are you based?
Derby, UK. Six minutes' walk from the station. We are happy to take meetings in person if you want to visit — we are normally in the office Tuesday through Thursday. London is ninety minutes away and we are there roughly monthly.
Who are James and Louis?
The two operators behind Moonlabs. We run home.co.uk (Britain's original property portal, founded 1995, acquired 2025), Homemove (the AI-powered transactional layer), and homedata.co.uk (the property market signal product). We have raised £5m+ for our own companies and ~£10m across the wider portfolio. AI-native since the week ChatGPT shipped.
Is there equity involved?
Only in the Incubator. The Academy is paid tuition with no equity component. AI for business (Forward Deployment) is paid retainer with no equity. The Incubator takes 1% in exchange for the technical foundation, a 10% success fee on funds raised in the round we help close, and a £999 commitment fee on signing — that £999 is credited back against the success fee at round close, so it costs nothing on net if you raise.
How do I get in touch?
The fastest route is the application form at /apply — it goes straight to our inbox and we read every one personally inside a week. For shorter questions, email founders@homemove.com. We do not run a separate "contact" form; the application form is the front door.
Your next chapter starts here.
Tell us about the company you want to build. If we’re a fit, we’ll get back within a week.
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