A twelve-week AI cohort, two and a half hours from Temple Meads.
Moonlabs is the operator-led AI Academy in Derby. We run three live companies — Homemove, home.co.uk and homedata.co.uk — and we teach twelve students per cohort to ship a real AI product, sell it to a real customer, and raise on it. Three pillars: Coding, Commercials, Investment. Twelve weeks. £6,000.
Moonlabs is what we are. Two operators — James Freestone and Louis O’Connell-Bristow — who run Homemove, home.co.uk and homedata.co.uk, have raised £5m+ for their own companies, and have been AI-native since the week ChatGPT shipped.
The Academy is what we do. A twelve-week, in-person, twelve-student cohort in Derby. You build a real AI product. You sign a paid pilot. You write a deck and a financial model. You leave with a deployed system, a paying customer reference and a live investor pipeline. Coding, Commercials, Investment — the three pillars taught in equal weight every week.
Bristol has a tech scene that punches well above its weight — aerospace, defence engineering, fintech, robotics, UoB, UWE, Bath nearby. Derby is two and a half hours by train via Birmingham. This is a short-stay relocation question, not a commute: most past South-West students have stayed in central Derby Monday-Thursday and gone home weekends.
Coding · the stack Bristol employers are hiring for
Cursor, Claude Code, Codex, evals, deploys, observability. Bristol hosts Graphcore, Imagination Technologies, Dyson’s Bristol AI team, Just Eat Bristol, Hargreaves Lansdown, Ovo Energy, Airbus Defence, BAE Bristol, Five AI’s alumni, plus the post-UoB / UWE robotics and aerospace cluster — all hiring AI engineers. A deployed product by week twelve on your CV before any UoB, UWE or Bath CS finalist has graduated.
Commercials · sell into the South-West SMB market
Bristol sits at the centre of a 40,000-business South-West SMB market with serious aerospace, robotics and creative-industries weight. Pricing, discovery, a one-page pilot agreement, the first £500 invoice. A paid pilot by week six — for many graduates, sold into a Bristol business they already know.
Investment · the South-West capital network
Cap table from week two, ten-slide deck, financial model, term sheets line by line. Bristol Private Equity Club, Foresight, Future Fund, the South West Angels, Britbots, Octopus Ventures, IP Group (Bath spin-out specialist) plus the London pre-seed graph for graduates raising bigger. A live investor pipeline by demo day.
Common questions.
How long is the commute from Bristol to Derby?
Around 2 hours 30 minutes by train, via Birmingham New Street. Realistic for weekly commutes or relocation, not daily. Most past South West students have taken short-term accommodation in central Derby.
I am at UoB / UWE / Bath. Can I fit this around my degree?
The Academy is full-time during the twelve weeks. Best fits are sandwich-year placements, gap years, or the summer between final exams and the next academic year.
What about accommodation in Derby?
We can introduce you to short-term central Derby accommodation at sensible rates — materially cheaper than Bristol, let alone London. Several past students from outside the Midlands have done exactly this.
How does this compare to AI courses in London or Bristol?
There is little serious in-person AI bootcamp competition in Bristol; for the most credible comparable in-person London options, you would pay materially more in tuition and living costs. The Derby base is a feature.
What about Bath, Exeter, Cardiff, Swansea, Plymouth?
All reachable by train (Cardiff has a similar journey to Bristol via Birmingham). Several past students have travelled in from each. Honest conversation about your specific situation on the first call.
More Academy entry points.
The Academy is one course with many doors. Each of these pages is a different entry point into the same twelve weeks.
Build it. Sell it. Raise on it. In twelve weeks.
Tell us what you would build and where you are based in the South-West. James and Louis read every application personally and reply inside the week.
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