Some of the most interesting opportunities created by technological change do not fit neatly inside an existing product, market or organisation.
Startup Foundry is where we explore what should exist next with founders and organisations prepared to start from the question itself.
New ventures become interesting when something fundamental changes.
We look for those changes and ask what new products, services and businesses they could make possible.
A technical breakthrough can create possibility. It does not automatically create a useful product, a customer or a business.
Is the technology genuinely ready?And does anybody need what it makes possible?
The work is finding the intersection between what technology can now do and a problem, behaviour or need significant enough to build around. That means being willing to challenge both sides.
AI, robotics, biotechnology, computing, energy, advanced materials and space are usually organised into separate categories. New ventures do not have to respect those boundaries.
We are particularly interested in opportunities created when technologies converge, when capability from one field changes what becomes possible in another.
Startup Foundry draws on the same monitoring and convergence thinking behind Future Intelligence to explore technologies, capabilities and shifts that could create entirely new opportunities.
These are areas of work rather than steps. Which of them matters depends entirely on the opportunity.
Understand what has changed, why the opportunity may exist now and what assumptions need testing.
Define the problem, audience and reason a new product or business should exist.
Determine which technologies genuinely matter to the proposition and how they could create an advantage.
Explore how intelligence, agents or other emerging capabilities could shape the product from the beginning.
Consider where value is created, who pays, what scales and what could make the proposition defensible.
Test the important assumptions before committing unnecessary time and capital.
An engagement may begin with a question, an opportunity thesis, a workshop or focused advisory work.
If the opportunity proves compelling, the relationship can deepen as the proposition, technology and venture take shape.
For selected opportunities, we are open to exploring longer-term venture-building relationships.
A new venture does not have to inherit the processes, systems and assumptions of an organisation built before AI.
Where appropriate, we explore what it means to design a company, product and operating model around intelligence from the beginning. That can affect the product itself, how work gets done, what needs to be internal, what can remain external and how quickly a small team can operate.
This is not about adding AI everywhere. It is about asking what you would design differently if you were starting today.
Where intelligence is fundamental to the proposition, our AI & Intelligent Systems work can extend from product direction into architecture, agents, intelligent workflows and implementation.
The idea does not need to be finished. The important thing is that there is a meaningful question, a technological shift or an opportunity worth exploring seriously.
We work with founders who are exploring ambitious technology-led ideas and want a strategic partner capable of moving between technology, product, business and the wider future landscape.
You may already have a clear idea.
You may have a technology and be searching for the right application.
Or you may simply see a shift happening and believe there is a company somewhere inside it.
The starting point can vary.
Sometimes technological change creates an opportunity that is difficult to pursue through existing structures, incentives, products or operating models.
We can help organisations explore whether an emerging opportunity belongs inside the core business, needs a different model, or could justify something new.
How do you turn an ambitious AI vision into a product people actually want to use?
For an AI deep tech company, we combined product strategy, learning design and hands-on prototype reviews with the developers.
A working prototype, with clear requirements and build priorities.
If technology has made something newly possible, let’s explore what it could become.