An AI incubator, across the Midlands.
For Midlands AI founders — East and West — who want an operator on the cap table without the London commute. James drives over from Derby. Phil drives over from Nottingham. Birmingham, Coventry, Solihull, Wolverhampton are an hour up the M42; the whole region is within reach.
The Midlands is one of the most populous, most industrial and (arguably) most underserved startup regions in the UK. The East Midlands has Derby, Nottingham, Leicester, Loughborough, the universities and the engineering heritage. The West Midlands has Birmingham, Coventry, Solihull, Wolverhampton, the manufacturing belt and a serious digital studio scene. Between the two, several million people, thousands of operating businesses, and very little operator-led incubator support inside the region.
Moonlabs runs from inside the East Midlands and covers the wider Midlands by car. James Freestone (co-founder, commercial & capital lead) is in Derby. Phil Mostyn (delivery lead, ex Dell / GoDaddy / Foodhub) is in Nottingham. Birmingham is an hour south of either base via the M42; Coventry is around 50 minutes from Nottingham; Wolverhampton and Solihull are easy day trips. Same operator team behind Homemove, home.co.uk and homedata.co.uk; Louis joins on technical architecture from Norwich, Shivam on funding from London.
Same Moonlabs Incubator commercials, Midlands-wide: 1% tech-for-equity on the company, 10% success fee on capital raised, £999 commitment fee on signing credited back at round close. No application fee, no cohort, no demo day. Rolling intake. We back the small number of Midlands founders we can do real operating work alongside.
East Midlands base, Midlands reach
Two operators inside the region (James in Derby, Phil in Nottingham). The whole East Midlands is doorstep; Birmingham, Coventry, Solihull, Wolverhampton and Stoke are inside an hour. Not a London team that "covers the Midlands" by Zoom — a Midlands team that drives there.
Two operators in the region
James leads commercial and capital from Derby. Phil leads delivery from Nottingham (ex Dell / GoDaddy / Foodhub, trained AI-native by James and Louis from the week ChatGPT shipped). The right specialist is in the room at the right moment, not one generalist trying to cover both jobs.
Operator commercials, regional base
Same Moonlabs Incubator shape that operates anywhere we work: 1% + £999 + 10% on capital raised. Operators on your cap table for the technology — not a fund cheque from a London office, not a programme-manager calendar from a Birmingham accelerator.
Common questions.
Why call this "Midlands" when your base is East Midlands?
Because the operational reality is that James (Derby) and Phil (Nottingham) cover both the East and West Midlands by car. Birmingham is an hour south of either base via the M42; Coventry is closer to Phil from Nottingham (around 50 minutes); Wolverhampton, Solihull and Dudley are easy day trips. The Midlands is a single travel-day region for us, even though our two bases sit in the eastern half of it.
We’re in Birmingham / Coventry / Wolverhampton / Stoke — do you cover us?
Yes. Birmingham, Solihull, Walsall, West Bromwich and Wolverhampton are inside a half-day on-site visit from Derby. Coventry leans Phil from Nottingham (50 min). Stoke is around an hour from Derby. We work in-person across the West Midlands as a planned half-day visit, with the rest of the project running remote in between.
How does this differ from the AI Incubator East Midlands page?
The East Midlands page is the regional roll-up for our home turf — Derbyshire, Notts and Leics, where same-day on-site briefs are the default. This page extends the framing to the broader Midlands (East + West) and is honest about the West Midlands being a half-day visit rather than same-day. Same Incubator, slightly different geographic shape.
What about Birmingham’s own accelerator and incubator ecosystem?
Birmingham has serious local options — Aston University’s BSEEN accelerator, Innovation Birmingham (Faraday Wharf), Tech-WM, Steamhouse, and various corporate-backed cohorts. They’re good in their lanes (Aston for student / graduate founders; Innovation Birmingham for science-park residents; Tech-WM for regional sector building). Moonlabs is in a different lane: AI-native, operator-led, rolling intake, with operators on the cap table for the technology rather than a programme calendar or a cohort cheque.
Where do the founders we work with typically come from across the Midlands?
We don’t publish portfolio numbers or named clients (the queue’s approved-facts list is short for a reason). What we can say: the Incubator is built for pre-seed and seed AI-native founders — B2B SaaS, AI services, vertical AI, data products — with an operating-business shape, anywhere in the UK. The Midlands page exists because we get more inbound from the region than we can fairly take, and we’d rather be specific about who we are than leave Midlands founders pretending we don’t cover them.
The full Incubator page
The full Moonlabs Incubator offer in one place — process, pillars, commercials, founders we work with.
About James, Louis, Phil & Shivam
The operators behind the work. £5m+ raised for their own companies, ~£10m across their broader career, AI-native since the week ChatGPT shipped.
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 the company you keep meaning to build.
Tell us about the idea and where in the Midlands you are. James or Phil — whoever’s closer — will come back inside the week with a meeting slot at your office.
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