Moonlabs Academy · for HR professionals

AI for HR. By the people who build it.

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 our own companies, and run the people function across three live teams every week.

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 on it. 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.

Why this page exists. HR is in the middle of a reshape that almost no HR conference has caught up with. Policy retrieval, comp benchmarking, employee-experience analytics, agentic L&D, performance-review writing, attrition modelling — the AI surfaces inside the people function are growing every quarter. The HR leaders being promoted in 2026 are the ones who can ship the systems themselves; the ones being squeezed are still waiting for the vendor pitch. You return to your function as the HR leader who can ship the AI — or as the founder of the HR-tech tool you have been frustrated by for years.

Apply for the next cohort See the Academy

Coding · the HR-AI stack, built defensibly

Policy retrieval over your handbook, comp benchmarking agents, structured performance-review drafting, employee-experience surveys with agentic analysis. Bias evals, audit trails and fairness checks from week one because AI in HR has to defend itself under employment law and equalities legislation. A deployed HR-AI tool by week twelve.

Commercials · selling AI into a people function

Pricing the tool per FTE supported or per HRBP seat. Procurement, employment-law sign-off, CHRO sponsor, works council where applicable. A one-page pilot agreement with one BU. A paid pilot by week six — sometimes inside the function you arrived from, sometimes sold out to peer firms.

Investment · raising on HR-tech AI

Lattice raised at $3bn, Deel at $12bn, Personio at $8.5bn, Multiverse, Borderless — HR-tech and people-AI is one of the largest vertical-SaaS categories in the world. Cap table, ten-slide deck, financial model, term sheets. We make warm introductions. A live investor pipeline by demo day.

FAQ

Common questions.

I have never coded. Is this realistic for an HR professional?

Yes. AI tooling has collapsed the on-ramp; we have taken senior non-coding professionals through to a deployed product in twelve weeks. More on that here.

How does this compare to the AI course for recruiters?

Same Academy, different default project shape. Recruiters gravitate to sourcing and outreach tooling; HRBPs and L&D leaders gravitate to policy retrieval, performance, comp and employee experience. Recruiter page.

Will I learn how to evaluate vendor HR-AI products too?

Yes. After twelve weeks of building you can read a Workday AI, Eightfold, Visier AI demo with operator-grade scepticism. The procurement conversations on the other side change shape.

Can my employer fund this?

Often yes — HR L&D budgets and the Apprenticeship Levy can apply. Full funding routes here.

Will I learn fairness and bias evaluation properly?

Yes — central to the syllabus when the project involves people decisions. Demographic parity, equalised odds, calibrated subgroup performance — we teach the patterns and the limits.

AI course for recruiters

The adjacent function inside the broader people stack — for the talent acquisition side specifically.

Apprenticeship Levy AI course

How firms fund the Academy through L&D budgets, the Apprenticeship Levy, or upskilling allowances.

Other ways in

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.

Built for your role

Build it. Sell it. Raise on it. In twelve weeks.

Tell us what your people function looks like today and what AI tool you would build for it. James and Louis read every application personally and reply inside the week.

Apply to the Academy Apprenticeship levy funding

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