The AI edition
One-to-one support to build and grow an AI-native venture, free to founders and SMEs.
“We transform ventures using AI; all cohorts are AI-empowered or AI-native now.” Professor Xiao Ma, Director, CBIT
What AI adds
- Proposed: work each of the four pillars with the AI methods CBIT already teaches: AI-assisted market and competitor scans (as in STEAM Founder), one process redesigned with AI support and human checks (as in AI-Powered Business Transformation), growth experiments, and an investor-ready data room.
- Delivered: a Venture Builder cohort firm, BarberBoss, went on to the KTP that put AI into its supply chain. Funded AI projects CBIT era
AI-native outcome: ventures whose core processes (research, sales, operations, reporting) run as AI-supported workflows that the team owns, checks and improves.
The journey takes 6 to 10 months and has four distinct but connected pillars. Each pillar is flexible and runs through regular one-to-one strategy sessions, so the journey follows what your venture needs.
Pillar 1 Business Modelling & Innovation Clinic
Uncover a broad range of innovative opportunities for your business, and prioritise the ones with the greatest potential to create value.
- Identify new opportunities and product-market fit
- Prioritise ideas by the value they add
- Explore and map new ideas, products and markets
- Identify and capitalise on value propositions based on market needs
- Redesign business models and value propositions, iteratively
Pillar 2 Product Roadmap & Process Design
Strengthen your business processes by creating new ones or improving the ones you have. Pinpoint the tasks that add value, give each an owner and set key performance indicators (KPIs) to measure success.
- Create new business processes and improve existing ones
- Plan value-added tasks and assign owners
- Set short-term and long-term KPIs
- Adopt the tools and skills to use new technology
- Design the product roadmap
Pillar 3 Growth Hacking in “Blue Ocean”
Win new customers, get them using your product and keep them, at scale and at low cost, through quick experiments. “Blue Ocean” means markets with little or no competition. It applies whether you sell to consumers or to other businesses, or through other commercial contracts.
- Identify key customers and segments
- Outline key growth metrics
- Build sales funnels and strategies that acquire and activate customers
- Run rapid experiments to find growth-hack tactics
- Target, onboard and retain customers at scale
Pillar 4 Investment Readiness Support
Become ready for public or private funding through tailored due diligence, co-developed bid writing and practice pitches.
- Co-build investment collateral
- Co-develop due-diligence intelligence
- Identify relevant public and private funding opportunities
- Practise pitches and build your deck
- Get help with grant funding and consortium matchmaking
Every venture accepted into the CBIT Venture Builder gets access to software and hardware, select university infrastructure and expertise, and the CBIT founders network.
The CBIT Venture Builder also works with corporate entrepreneurs: people in established organisations who build new ventures inside them. Design, validate and launch AI-native corporate ventures, using CBIT’s playbook and the Venture Builder’s one-to-one support.
The terms are agreed with the company. Tell us about your organisation and the venture you have in mind.
Email us about a corporate venture
CBIT Venture Builder
A UK air-purifier maker grew with the Venture Builder, then joined a funded project in Thailand
In their words: In a testimonial, Healthy Air says the support “enabled us to enter four new countries”.
Read the story: A UK air-purifier maker grew with the Venture Builder, then joined a funded project in Thailand
Who: Healthy Air Technology, a UK maker of air-purification products and a member of the CBIT Venture Builder cohort.
- The challenge
- The company was developing smart air purifiers and wanted to grow beyond the UK.
- What CBIT did
- CBIT supported it through the CBIT Venture Builder, CBIT’s programme of one-to-one support for founders and SMEs. In 2024 the company joined CBIT’s British Council bid with Chiang Mai University as an associated partner and “venture in residence”.
- What happened
- The bid won funding in 2025. Healthy Air is part of the project as a UK venture committed to exploring the Thai market with CBIT.
- Where it can lead
- Ventures can join CBIT’s funded projects as partners, or seek innovation funding with CBIT.
This case on the Case studies page
