The AI university most universities are not.
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. We hire CS graduates from Russell Group universities and we know what a 2026 CS degree actually produces. The honest comparison on this page is the version we would give a sixth-former at a kitchen-table conversation.
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. A computer-science degree in 2026 is a strange product. Three years, £27,000 in fees, and a curriculum largely written before frontier AI existed. It works for some students — it is increasingly the wrong shape for others. Some of our students do the Academy after their degree as a finishing school. Some do it instead. Some do it on a gap year. You leave the Academy hireable at senior bands — or as a co-founder of a funded company — before most CS undergraduates have finished their second year.
Coding · twelve weeks shipping, not three years on paper
A CS degree teaches data structures, algorithms and a syllabus written before frontier AI existed. The Academy teaches Cursor, Claude Code, Codex, production retrieval, agents, evals, observability and deploy — the stack 2026 hiring managers actually ask for. A deployed AI product by week twelve — on a real domain, with real users, before most freshers finish orientation.
Commercials · £6,000 vs £27,000, paid pilot vs unpaid placement
A clear price, payable up front or monthly. Bursaries, scholarships, employer funding and apprenticeship routes accepted. A paid pilot signed inside the cohort — not a year-in-industry placement at a graduate scheme. A paid pilot by week six — the milestone the degree route simply does not have.
Investment · founder option at twenty, not at thirty
CS degree best-case: a junior grad-scheme job at twenty-two. Academy best-case: a co-founder seat in a funded AI company at twenty, or a senior-AI offer at Anthropic / Cohere / ElevenLabs / Wayve on the strength of a deployed product. Cap table, ten-slide deck, financial model. A live investor pipeline by demo day — or the parents-page conversation if you want both. Read the parents page.
Common questions.
Is this an accredited university degree?
No. The Moonlabs Academy is a private twelve-week vocational course — it does not award a degree. Graduates routinely receive offers at salaries that look senior on paper, because the output is what matters. If a degree is the artefact you need, do the degree.
Should I do this instead of university, or after?
Both are valid. Many of our students treat the Academy as a finishing school after their degree. Others do it as a gap year, with university held in reserve. A growing number do it as a deliberate alternative. We have an honest conversation about which fits you on the first call.
What do my parents need to know?
A great deal — which is why there is a whole page for them. The summary: it is twelve weeks, £6,000, in Derby, with named operators, a clear curriculum, and a track record of graduates being hired into senior roles. Read the parents page before you push send.
Will I miss out on the university experience?
Honestly — possibly, yes, in the social sense. We are an intense twelve-week vocational programme, not a three-year campus. Many of our students do both at different points, in different orders. Pick the shape that matches what you want from your early twenties.
How do graduates compare to university leavers in interviews?
They walk in with a deployed product, paying pilots, a deck, a financial model and references from working operators. In a technical interview that is hard to compete with from a CS degree alone, regardless of which university awarded it.
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 where you are in your studies and whether your parents are part of the conversation. James and Louis read every application personally and reply inside the week.
© 2026 Moonlabs Incubator. All rights reserved.