The studio

A venture studio for the industries that can't afford to move slowly, or cut corners.

We run forward-deployed AI teams inside regulated businesses. The patterns we see become the products we build. Services fund the studio. The studio sharpens the services. Neither works alone.

3
Industries actively shipping
1
Venture launched in year one
Patterns compounding across engagements
Thesis

Why regulated industries, and not everything else.

AI is easy in unregulated industries. Ship fast, iterate, apologise later. That model doesn't survive iGaming, fintech, or healthcare. These industries reward companies that ship fast AND survive audit. That's a very small club. We want to be at the top of it.

Every decade, a technology shift redraws the map of who wins in regulated markets. Cloud in the 2010s. Mobile before that. AI is the current shift, and regulated industries are responding the same way they always do: with suspicion, slow procurement, and compliance reviews that outlast the vendors they're reviewing.

The winners in this shift won't be the firms with the cleverest models. They'll be the ones who can build production AI inside regulated operators, alongside their compliance teams, without cutting corners. That's a discipline, not a pitch.

Regulated industries sit at an unusual intersection. They have real commercial pain that AI can solve. They have the revenue to pay for it properly. And they have enough complexity that anyone who builds a reliable playbook gets a moat that's difficult to copy. That's where we want to live.

01 / BARRIER

High barrier, durable moat.

Most AI vendors can't or won't do the compliance work. The ones that do, earn long memory from their customers.

02 / WILLINGNESS

Real pain, real budget.

Regulated operators aren't experimenting for the sake of it. They have commercial pressure and the budget to solve it.

03 / LOCK-IN

Once inside, you stay inside.

The switching cost of a vendor that's already passed audit is genuinely high. That's a commercial asset, not a risk.

04 / WHITESPACE

Underserved by both ends.

Big Four is too slow and too generic. Silicon Valley doesn't want to read the regulations. The middle is wide open.

The model

Services feed ventures. Ventures feed services. Nothing gets wasted.

Most venture studios burn capital until a winner emerges. Most services firms stay stuck at the ceiling of billable hours. We run both, on purpose, because each one makes the other stronger.

01 / ENGAGE

Embed senior teams.

We place forward-deployed engineers inside regulated operators. Real problems, real constraints, real data.

02 / OBSERVE

Patterns surface.

The second and third time we solve the same problem in a new industry, we know it's not an engagement. It's a product.

03 / BUILD

Ship the venture.

We turn the pattern into a product. Spin it into its own entity. Find its market. OneHazel was the first.

04 / COMPOUND

Ventures sharpen services.

The product is a tool our engineers use in the next engagement. Our clients benefit from IP we've already built.

The compounding loop. Every engagement sharpens the studio. Every venture sharpens the services. Pure services firms can't do this. Pure studios can't afford it.
The math

Three models. Two that work. One that works better.

PURE SERVICES FIRM

Linear. Capped. Low equity value.

  • Revenue is a function of billable hours. You scale by hiring.
  • No product, no IP, no enterprise value multiple.
  • Client concentration risk. Lose one, lose a quarter.
  • ~Predictable revenue from day one.
PURE VENTURE STUDIO

Capital-hungry. Slow. High pressure.

  • Burns capital until a winner emerges. Often years.
  • Needs high hit-rate across multiple bets simultaneously.
  • Disconnected from real customer pain until post-launch.
  • +If it works, enterprise-value outcomes.
If you're one of these

Four ways into the studio.

01 / OPERATORS

You need AI built properly, and fast.

Fintech, iGaming, healthcare, digital media, software testing. You want production AI shipped inside your business without risking your licence or your quarter.

Work with us
02 / FOUNDERS

You're building something in regulated AI.

You've got a prototype, some traction, and a category forming. You want a home that understands your sector, not a generic accelerator that treats you like a SaaS template.

Join the studio
03 / INVESTORS

You like the studio model but want proof it ships.

We're raising a pre-seed round. Services-funded. One venture already live. Investors who want to back studios building in regulated industries should get in early.

Talk to the team
04 / ENGINEERS

You want to build products AND ventures.

Senior AI and platform engineers who are bored of either pure consulting (no ownership) or pure product (narrow scope). You want both. We're hiring and we're hiring well.

See open roles
Founders

Join our venture studio.

We don't run a cohort. We take an equity stake in a small number of ventures a year and back them the way we built OneHazel: an embedded engineering team plus hands-on direction on product and go-to-market. No demo day, no fixed intake — pitch us whenever you're ready.

01

Embedded engineers, not advisors

Senior AI and platform engineers join your build — the same team that ships our client work and OneHazel.

02

Hands-on direction

Product and go-to-market input from operators who've built inside regulated industries, not passive observers.

03

Equity-aligned

We take a stake instead of a fee. We only win if the venture does.

04

Regulated-industry focus

Fintech, iGaming, healthcare, digital media, software testing. The unifying thread is regulation, not vertical.

What we look for.

  • AI at the core, not a feature bolted on
  • Regulated focus: fintech, iGaming, healthcare, digital media, software testing
  • A committed, full-time team with real domain expertise
  • A working prototype and at least one non-founder user
Who runs it

Built by people who've operated inside regulated businesses.

We're not consultants who discovered AI. We're operators and engineers who've shipped inside the industries we now build for. That's who we want working on client engagements. That's who we want building ventures.

Meet the full team
KZ
Keith Zammit
Founder & CEO · Three-time founder · B2B iGaming operator
CH
Christian Harms
Co-founder & COO · Operations and delivery
MP
Mikko Puhakka
Advisor · Lion Partners · Scale and fundraising

Talk to the studio.

Operator, founder, investor, or engineer, there's a conversation worth having. Thirty minutes, no deck.