Build it now.Pay in equity.
Most early founders need a product before they can raise, and need money before they can build the product. We take the other side of that trade: we build it, and take a stake instead of an invoice.
- The problem, the customers and the domain knowledge
- Product decisions, and the time to make them quickly
- Whatever runway exists, spent on the things engineering cannot cover
- Architecture, build and infrastructure
- A team that scales as the product does
- The engineering judgement to say when something is not worth building
How it works
Four steps. The commercial terms are settled at step two, before any code exists.
- 01
Talk it through
A conversation, not a pitch review. What you are building, who it is for, what exists already, and how far you need to get before the next funding conversation.
- 02
Scope and terms, in writing
We agree what gets built, what it would have cost as a normal engagement, and what stake stands in place of that fee. Nothing starts before both are signed.
- 03
Build
We run engineering the way we would on any paid product: architecture, build, infrastructure, and a person you can talk to who is on the code.
- 04
Keep going, or hand over
Either we keep building as the product grows, or we hand over the complete codebase with its documentation and pipelines. Which one is settled in the original terms, not improvised later.
Whether this fits
We say no more often than yes, and we would rather say it in the first conversation than the third.
What we look for
- Founders working on this full time, not around a job
- A problem we can understand without a deck
- Something we can build with the team we have
- A market where we can see who pays and why
What it is not for
- Ideas that need a licence, a fleet or a factory before software matters
- Work a single developer could finish in a fortnight
- Founders who want hands on a keyboard rather than a partner
The terms
The part most founders want in writing before they talk to anyone.
- What you get
- Architecture, build and infrastructure from the people who will keep running it — not a throwaway prototype you have to rewrite the month after you raise.
- What it costs up front
- A reduced rate, or none at all, depending on the stage and the size of the stake. Whatever it is, it is agreed in writing before a line is written.
- What we look for
- Founders committed to this full time, a problem we can understand without a deck, and a market we can believe in. We say no more often than yes.
- Who owns it
- Shared, on terms fixed at the start rather than negotiated later when the product is working and the leverage has moved.
Send the brief you would send anyone else. Tell us where the money is, or is not, and we will tell you honestly whether this is a partner build, a normal paid build, or something we should not take on at all.