A twelve-week AI cohort an hour from Coventry station.
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.
Coventry has Warwick, Coventry University, WMG and one of the strongest engineering talent pipelines in the country. Derby is roughly an hour up the line by direct train — this is a commute question, not a relocation question. Past West Midlands students have travelled in daily without difficulty.
Coding · the stack Coventry employers are hiring for
Cursor, Claude Code, Codex, evals, deploys, observability. Coventry hosts JLR (Britain’s largest car manufacturer), WMG’s Industry-4.0 cluster, Cadent Gas, Severn Trent, the National Automotive Innovation Centre, Aston Martin Lagonda, plus the Warwick AI cluster — all hiring AI engineers for autonomous-vehicle, manufacturing-AI and energy-grid work. A deployed product by week twelve on your CV before any Warwick, Coventry University or WMG CS finalist has graduated.
Commercials · sell into the West Midlands manufacturing belt
Coventry sits at the centre of the West Midlands automotive and manufacturing belt — 25,000+ industrial SMBs spending real money on tools an AI agent could replace, and AI buying decisions mostly unmade. Pricing, discovery, a one-page pilot agreement, the first £500 invoice. A paid pilot by week six.
Investment · WMCA + Midlands angel network
Cap table from week two, ten-slide deck, financial model, term sheets line by line. West Midlands Combined Authority, Midlands Engine, Birmingham angel network, Mercia, plus the Warwick Innovations and WMG ventures spin-out networks — we know the regional capital, and we make warm introductions. A live investor pipeline by demo day.
Common questions.
How long is the commute from Coventry to Derby?
Around an hour by direct train. The Academy venue is two minutes’ walk from Derby station — practical door-to-door is around 75 minutes.
I am at Warwick / Coventry / WMG. 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. Several past students have done exactly that.
What about accommodation in Derby if I want to stay locally?
We can introduce you to short-term central Derby accommodation at sensible rates. Most Coventry-based students commute, but some have stayed Monday-Thursday and gone home for the weekend.
How does this compare to AI courses in Birmingham or Warwick?
Both cities have credible academic AI options; the in-person operator-led bootcamp space is thinner. The Academy is a different shape from any of the West Midlands academic options — less theory, more shipping.
What about Leamington, Rugby, Solihull, Nuneaton?
All reachable within 90 minutes by train. Several past students have travelled in from across the West Midlands and Warwickshire.
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 West Midlands. James and Louis read every application personally and reply inside the week.
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