How to raise for 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 negotiated term sheets line by line, written the awkward investor-update emails, walked the dilution maths, and closed the round. The playbook on this page is the one we use, not the one we read.
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, with this page’s arc compressing the Investment pillar into operating muscle memory.
Why this page exists. The fundraising market for AI startups in 2026 is the most competitive in modern history. Investors are flooded with decks; funds are writing more cheques and being more sceptical with each one. The bar for “raised seed” has risen: real customers, real revenue or letters of intent, and a clear answer to why this team, why now. You leave the Academy with a deck, a model and a live investor pipeline running — not a Notion page about how investors think.
Coding · the shipped product that makes the raise credible
Investors back products, not slides. By demo day you have a deployed AI product on a real domain with at least one paying pilot. The fundraising work compounds on top of that: without it, the deck is fiction. A deployed product + paid pilot by week six — the bedrock the raise sits on.
Commercials · the deck, model and ten true slides
A ten-slide deck defended in front of the cohort. A financial model built from a template we use ourselves, stress-tested through real investor objections. Pricing, unit economics, payback, margin, ARR ramp. A model that survives diligence by week ten.
Investment · the pipeline, the term sheet, the close
Cap table from week two (SAFE vs equity, dilution, anti-dilution, liquidation preferences, walked line by line). Fifty plausible investors curated to your wedge. Cold outreach written by hand and sent Tuesday of week nine. UK pre-seed and seed AI rounds (Plural, Local Globe, Concrete VC, Pi Labs, EF Ventures, Forward Partners, Backed VC, Notion Capital, Octopus, Connect, Hoxton) are who we know and where we make warm introductions for graduates who have earned them. A live investor pipeline by demo day.
Common questions.
How much can I realistically raise out of the Academy?
Highly variable. Recent UK AI pre-seed and seed rounds range from £250k to £3m, depending on the team, the wedge and the traction. The Academy gets you to a strong position to run the campaign — the round size is a function of you, the wedge and the market.
Do you invest yourselves?
Not as the Academy itself — we charge tuition. The Moonlabs Incubator is the equity-shaped step in our ecosystem; a subset of strong Academy graduates go on to join it.
Will I learn term sheets and cap tables properly?
Yes — we walk through real term sheets line by line, and your own cap table is opened from week two. SAFE vs equity, dilution, anti-dilution, liquidation preferences — all of it, taught by people who have negotiated them.
I have an AI idea but no product yet. Is the Academy still right?
Yes — that is the most common shape. The Academy will get you from idea to a shipped product to a paid pilot to a fundraising-ready position in the same twelve weeks.
Will you introduce me to investors directly?
For the cohort that does the work and graduates well, yes — we make warm introductions where they make sense. We will not pretend we can guarantee them — only that we have a real network and we use it when graduates have earned the introduction.
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 Find Paying Pilots For AI Startup
How To Build An AI Startup
How To Become An AI Engineer
How To Hire Your First AI Engineer
How To Find A Co Founder UK
How To Incorporate An AI Startup UK
Build it. Sell it. Raise on it. In twelve weeks.
Tell us what you would build and what raise you have in mind. James and Louis read every application personally and reply inside the week.
© 2026 Moonlabs Incubator. All rights reserved.