Twelve AI companies. One day.
Tired of leaving demo days with twenty business cards and zero conviction? Moonlabs demo day is twelve pre-seed AI companies, forty seats in the room, and lunch on the schedule. Every company has a deployed product and a paying customer. 3 September 2026 in Derby.
Most demo days are noisy. Two hundred people in a room, fifty pitches in a day, no time for a meaningful conversation. We have designed Moonlabs demo day in the opposite direction: twelve companies, forty people, lunch on the schedule. You leave the day with two or three companies you actually understand and want to track.
The companies share a profile. Pre-seed. UK-based founders, mostly Midlands and northern England. AI-native products with shipped MVPs and at least one paying customer. Cheque sizes the cohort is raising sit in the £25k-£500k band; weighted average around £150k.
What we filter for, so you don't have to.
Working product, real customer
Every company that pitches at demo day has a deployed product on the internet, used by a paying customer. No slideware. We will introduce you to the customer if you ask.
Founder operating posture
Twelve weeks of running their own company before they pitch. They have priced, scoped, contracted, hired, and answered customer support tickets. They are not founders-in-training.
Capital efficiency baked in
The cohort default is to raise a small round (£150k-£500k) and operate to eighteen-month runway. We coach against premature scaling. The companies we send to you have unit economics, not vibes.
Honest financial models
Every cohort company arrives with a financial model that we have stress-tested. We are not in the business of dressing up bad businesses. If the model breaks, the pitch does not happen.
Clean cap tables
Standard YC-style SAFEs at sensible caps where the company has already raised. No exotic structures. Diligence is light and predictable.
Aligned post-investment story
We continue to support cohort companies after demo day. Founders have a sparring partner; you have a backchannel. The information asymmetry that kills early-stage relationships is materially reduced.
What the day looks like.
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10:00
Arrival, coffee, products live
All twelve products are set up around the room. Wander, talk to founders directly, see the demos work. Forty minutes of unstructured conversation before the formal programme starts.
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10:30
Cohort overview
James and Louis spend twenty minutes framing the cohort, the curriculum, and what to look for across the twelve companies.
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11:00
Pitches, block one
Six companies pitch, six minutes each, two minutes of questions. Live products. Real customers named.
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12:30
Lunch, sit-down
Catered, founders seated across tables with the audience. The hour that produces most of the follow-up conversations.
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14:00
Pitches, block two
The remaining six companies. Same format.
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15:30
Roundtable Q&A
All twelve founders take questions from the floor. Pressure-tested in front of you. This is where you learn the most.
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16:00
Follow-ups booked
Founders and investors book direct follow-ups. We facilitate, lightly. The day ends at 17:00.
Pre-day diligence
You see the cohort deck two weeks before.
Two weeks ahead of demo day, registered investors receive a confidential cohort summary deck: every company, founders, product, traction, round being raised, cheque-size range, and use of funds. You can pre-screen which three or four companies you want to spend lunch with. The day becomes high-signal because the matching happens upstream of the room.
Why Moonlabs specifically.
Operators-as-curators.
We are working operators (home.co.uk, Homemove, homedata.co.uk). Not investors who run programmes; not academics who teach. The cohort is filtered by the same lens we apply to our own hires and acquisitions.
Twelve, not two hundred.
We deliberately cap the cohort and the audience. The information density per minute spent in the room is the optimisation.
UK-Midlands deal flow.
Most pre-seed cheques in 2026 chase the same London talent pool. We surface companies you would not otherwise see — strong founders building outside the London signal.
Post-demo continuity.
Moonlabs continues to support cohort companies for the year after demo day. You have a backchannel; we are aligned on company outcomes; the relationship is not transactional and over once you wire.
Common questions.
Does Moonlabs take equity in the cohort companies?
No. The Academy is funded by tuition (£6,000 per student). Cohort companies own 100% of their cap tables when they arrive at demo day. The Incubator side of the business (separate from the Academy) does take equity, but those are different companies and you would meet them through a different process.
Can I lead a round on a cohort company?
Yes. The cohort companies are open to lead investors and to angel syndicates. We will introduce you to the founders the same week if there is a fit; we do not gatekeep the rounds.
Do you syndicate alongside the cohort companies?
No. Moonlabs does not invest in the Academy cohort companies; we are a neutral curator. We can refer to other investors in our network if a round needs a follow-on lead.
What does a typical cheque size look like?
Most cohort companies raise £100k-£300k at demo day, weighted average around £150k. Cheque sizes from individual angels and small funds in the £25k-£100k band fit well.
Can I see the cohort deck before committing to attend?
Yes, we share a redacted version with prospective investors a month before the day. Email founders@homemove.com.
What if I cannot attend in person?
We record the pitches and host follow-up calls. Investors who cannot make Derby can still participate, but the room is materially better signal-to-noise than the recording.
Demo day · 3 September 2026 · Derby
Request an invitation.
Email founders@homemove.com with your typical cheque size, focus, and any sectors you actively avoid. Cohort deck previews go out from August. Invite list closes 19 August 2026.
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