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Batch 1
AI founders: time to build your next venture
Batch 1 starts September 7 · Rotterdam
The model
From idea to venture, in ten weeks.
Four times a year, up to twenty founders build enterprise AI companies side by side, on site in Rotterdam, from day one. Fly in from anywhere in the world; the building happens here.
01
Ten weeks, not months.
From a raw idea to an incorporated, funded company. Deadlines with teeth: selection at week 3, demo day at week 5, investors at week 10. That pace forces the truth out early, while being wrong still costs weeks, not years.
02
The whole studio behind you.
A dedicated Venture Builder on your company every week, plus the full studio behind them: go-to-market, product, legal, finance, operations, recruitment. Not mentors on a monthly call. The people in the room, taking work off your plate.
03
Up to €500K in staged capital.
Capital that follows the evidence, not the pitch. €150K at incorporation via a SAFE note, up to €350K more at seed, €500K in total. Standard terms, every tranche tied to proof you have already put on the table. See the full deal →
04
A network that actually shows up.
Investors, CTOs, Navigators and operators who answer the phone because they already work with us. Design partners in your target market, technical experts for the hard calls, and the investors who write the next cheque.
05
Twenty founders, one crew.
You build alongside nineteen other founders running the same gauntlet, in the same room. They stress-test your thinking and open their own networks. The cohort effect is real, and the six months are a lot more fun for it.
06
VSI, venture building as software.
Every founder builds on VSI, the AI platform we made for exactly this. It reads your calls and documents, turns them into evidence, keeps your pipeline current, and tells you what to do next. The work is the application.
How we build together
Six months, side by side.
From first validation cycle to a company that stands on its own. One continuous run, built together, with a clear decision gate between phases.
01Weeks 0–5
On site · Rotterdam
Validation.
Prove the problem is real. Validation cycles with your ICP, 3–5 signed design partners, and a build week that ends in a go or no-go, with the studio team and the batch of founders around you.
Decision gate
02Weeks 5–10
On site · Rotterdam
Shape.
Shape the company. Sharpen the solution with your design partners, build your first product and run at outside investors. Only the best ventures that prove themselves, we incorporate together, with pre-seed capital and the entire team behind them.
Decision gate
03Months 3–4
Co-building
Launch.
Bring the product to market together: first customers, first revenue, a real go-to-market.
Decision gate
04Months 4–6
Co-building
Growth.
Scale what works together: follow-on capital, key hires, and new markets.
Decision gate
05Month 6+
On your own
Graduation.
Not a phase, a moment: the team and momentum in place, building without us.
The partnership
We build companies together.
Whatever it takes to make your company work, we cover. Go-to-market, product, legal, finance, operations, recruitment: a team of experts around you, taking the frustrations off your plate. Not mentors on a call, the people in the room, every week of the batch.
Built on AI
AI does the work. Founders make the calls.
You build on VSI, the AI platform we made for venture building, next to the best AI tools of the moment. The AI handles everything that can be systematized, and together we handle everything that requires judgment. Because your work lives on the platform, the work is the application: we do not pick founders from pitch decks, the evidence does the picking.
Tells you what to do next
Strategic recommendations on your next move, grounded in the evidence your venture is already producing.
Analyses everything you feed it
Calls, documents, data. VSI reads your whole company and turns it into typed, scored signals you can act on.
Runs your pipeline for you
Your commercial pipeline updates itself after every conversation, so you never type a CRM entry again.
Coaches you between calls
Feedback on how you ran the meeting, what you missed, and how to run the next one better.
What we build here
The AI companies Europe will run on.
01 · How
Full-stack AI ventures
AI-native in what we build and in how we build it. Software that predicts and decides at its core, not a feature bolted on. Made by a studio that itself runs on AI, from discovery to go-to-market, on VSI.
02 · Scope
Building the Future of Work
We build enterprise AI: software for businesses that defines the future of work. Subscription-first, open to usage-based models. No consumer apps, no marketplaces. Problems that measurably hit productivity and the bottom line, proven by real design partners before a line of pitch deck.
03 · Where
Built in Europe
We launch in Europe, starting with English-speaking, euro-paying markets, compliant by design with GDPR and EU regulation. From there we expand across Europe and beyond. Rotterdam is home base, and the network is already here.
Opportunity domains
We pick the domains worth building in.
We do not chase whatever AI is trending. We research where enterprise AI is about to create real value, then commit: each domain below is one we have mapped to a real business problem, with design-partner leads already in hand and a Builder who knows the terrain. Come with your own idea or take one of these. Either way the bar is the same, signed design partners.
Life at Builders
A lot of building. A lot of fun.
You are never building alone: nineteen founders around you, the studio team in the same room, and a whole life between the sprints. Batch dinners and demo nights, CTO socials and the Investor House calendar, winter BBQs, boat trips, and founder weekends. A network that actually shows up.
Any questions?
A batch is 20 founders building startups in parallel. From onboarding to an incorporated company in about 10 weeks, on site in Rotterdam from day one. Based on the evidence, we select only the best ones to incorporate, invest, build together and conquer the market.
On site, in Rotterdam, from day one. The batch runs from the Builders office: you build next to the studio team, the network, and nineteen other founders. That closeness is the model.
For most founders, no. The in-office period fits inside the Schengen 90-day window, so no residence visa is needed. We send an invitation letter on request and help with arrival logistics.
Own idea or one of our opportunity domains, the way in is the same. You are onboarded, then you earn the build-week seat with at least 3 to 5 signed design partners in our actual target.
A commitment to a specific problem and a specific solution, plus the willingness to spend real time co-building it. Verbal interest does not count.
20 in the batch, 6 to 10 in the build week, and the strongest incorporate. Every stage is a real cut. A build-week seat is not a promise of incorporation.
If you clear the pre-incorporation sprint, we incorporate together. Builders holds 15% preferred shares on standard terms, €150K deploys via SAFE note at incorporation, and optionally up to €350K more at seed. Up to €500K total. See the full deal →
Ten weeks from onboarding to incorporation, on site in Rotterdam. It's a target, not a fixed clock: the in-office period can stretch up to three months, the Schengen 90-day limit. And after the ten weeks, if we move forward together, we co-build the company for the next 3–6 months.
Very welcome. Real traction is the strongest evidence there is, and it counts from day one: paying customers and active users only strengthen your case for the build week. We work with companies that have not raised professional funding yet, so if that is you, apply.
Bring them. We back teams as well as solo founders. You apply and run the batch together, the bar stays the same: prove the problem is real with signed design partners. At incorporation, Builders joins as a co-founding partner alongside your existing team.
VSI is the intelligence platform we run the batch on, our operating layer. It processes every conversation, scores the evidence, and keeps progress visible. As a product, VSI serves portfolio holders such as venture studios and funds. Explore VSI →
Yes, on a paid plan at €250 per month. It is the same platform we run the batch on, and what portfolio holders like venture studios and funds use to run theirs. If you apply for the batch, full access is included from the moment you apply.
You do. Everything you put into VSI is yours. If you decide to build with Builders, shared artifacts become part of the venture, but only after mutual agreement.
Not now is not no. Most founders in a batch will not be incorporated this round, that is the design. You can keep building on VSI on a paid plan, keep signing design partners, and if you experience great progress, reach back out and we re-evaluate. The door to a future batch stays open, and the evidence you built comes with you.
Batch 1
Claim your seat to build the next AI venture.
Board by August 15, starts September 7 in Rotterdam. Start proving your idea on VSI the moment you apply.
