How to pitch an AI startup.
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 have raised £5m+ across Homemove, home.co.uk and homedata.co.uk. We have stood in front of partner committees, answered the “but what stops OpenAI doing this?” question, lost rooms and won rooms. The pitch playbook on this page is what we have learned by doing it badly first.
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. Pitching sits inside the Investment pillar; the Coding and Commercials pillars are what give the pitch substance.
Why this page exists. The AI pitch market in 2026 is sceptical and tired. Investors have seen the same wrapper pitch a hundred times. They are not impressed by your model partner and unmoved by your eval numbers. What they want is a real wedge, a real customer reference, and a team that can talk for ten minutes without falling into the LinkedIn cadence. You leave the Academy with a pitch that has been dissected and rebuilt by people who close real rounds — not polished by a coach who has only watched them.
Coding · the deployed product behind the slides
A pitch with no shipped product is a creative writing exercise. By demo day the deck refers to a live AI surface, an eval suite you wrote yourself, and a paying customer who can be called. A deployed product the pitch can credibly reference, by week twelve — the bedrock everything else sits on.
Commercials · ten true slides + the anti-pitch
Ten slides where every claim is defensible: wedge, problem, traction, model, business, ask. The anti-pitch exercise — explicitly stating what your startup is NOT and what would have to be true for you to fail. Pricing maths and unit economics that survive a CFO read. A deck and model that survive diligence by week ten.
Investment · rehearsal against real operators
Live mock pitches in front of operators who have closed real rounds at £1m, £5m, £10m. The “but what stops OpenAI doing this?” objection drilled until the answer is operator-grade. Body language, pacing, the controlled silence after the ask. UK funds your wedge fits (Plural, Local Globe, Concrete VC, Pi Labs, EF, Notion Capital, Forward Partners) walked through, warm introductions where we have them. A live investor pipeline by demo day.
Common questions.
How long is a great AI pitch supposed to be?
A first meeting pitch should run ten minutes if you can do it well, five if you cannot. A second meeting is a Q&A, not a pitch — you should not be re-running the deck. Most AI founders we coach pitch for too long and answer questions for too little.
How do I handle the "but what stops OpenAI from doing this?" question?
Honestly. You name the threat, you name what protects you, and you name what would have to be true for OpenAI to actually move down-market into your wedge. The wrong answer is the dismissal. The right answer is the operator-grade analysis.
Should I lead with the AI or with the customer pain?
Customer pain. Always. Investors who lead-with-AI lose the room within a slide. Investors who lead with a real customer problem, then explain that AI is what makes this finally tractable, keep it.
Will I leave the Academy with a polished deck?
Yes — a ten-slide deck that has been rebuilt under operator pressure, plus the financial model and cap table that go with it. The Academy graduates pitch with materially better materials than typical UK pre-seed.
Do you invest yourselves?
Not as the Academy itself. The Moonlabs Incubator is the equity-shaped step; a subset of strong Academy graduates go on to join 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.
How To Build An AI Startup
How To Price An AI Product
How To Find A Co Founder UK
How To Hire Your First AI Engineer
How To Validate An AI Startup Idea
How To Write An AI Business Case
Build it. Sell it. Raise on it. In twelve weeks.
Tell us what you would pitch and who you would pitch it to. James and Louis read every application personally and reply inside the week.
© 2026 Moonlabs Incubator. All rights reserved.