A UK startup incubator without the demo-day theatre.
No cohort calendar. No pitch coaching. No demo day with eighty other founders. One-on-one with operators who run their own businesses — until your company is real, your pitch is honest, and the round is in motion.
Most UK startup incubators are a cohort, a calendar and a closing event. We are not. Moonlabs is two co-founders, an operator and a funding lead working one-on-one with each founder, on the founder’s timeline, until the company has shipped and the round is real.
James and Louis run Homemove, home.co.uk and homedata.co.uk. Phil runs operational scale from Nottingham. Shivam — ex Deutsche Bank — runs the funding side from London. You get the team running operating businesses, not a programme manager forwarding emails to one.
Commercials: 1% tech-for-equity on the company, a 10% success fee on capital raised, a £999 commitment fee on signing credited back against the success fee at round close. There is no application fee, no course tuition, no demo-day ticket.
One-on-one, not a cohort
You are not one of forty founders inside a stage-gate programme. Every meeting is with the people who will own the work alongside you. The shape of the engagement bends to the company, not the programme.
A built company, not a deck
We sharpen the wedge, build the product on a stack you own, refine the commercial story and stand behind the pitch. The artefact at the end is a company with paying users and a credible round, not a slide-deck competition.
Real introductions, not demo day
When the round shape is real, Shivam runs the introductions to investors who write into your stage and your sector. No demo day. No audience of competing founders. No theatre.
Common questions.
How is this different from a traditional UK startup incubator?
Traditional incubators run cohorts on a fixed calendar and end with a demo day. We work one-on-one with each founder, on their timeline. Traditional incubators take 6-7% equity. We take 1% for the technology and charge a 10% success fee on capital raised, so our upside is aligned with the round closing, not with batch graduation.
Do you take a cohort, or accept founders rolling?
Rolling. We do not run a fixed cohort calendar — we take founders we can do real work with, when we can do it. If we are at capacity, we will tell you on the first call and suggest when to come back.
What stage do you take founders at?
Pre-seed and seed. AI-native ideas with an operating-business shape — B2B SaaS, AI services, vertical AI, data products. We focus on founders who want operators on the cap table rather than allocators.
Where do you run the incubator from?
Four UK bases — Derby (James), Nottingham (Phil), Norwich (Louis), London (Shivam). Most in-person work runs from the East Midlands; funding and investor work runs from London. Founders typically split their weeks between their own city and ours.
What is the £999 commitment fee for?
A commitment fee on signing, credited back against the 10% success fee at round close. It exists to filter for serious founders and to cover the work between offer and incorporation.
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 you have not been able to put down. If we’re a fit, we’ll come back inside the week.
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