If any of this resonates, I'd love to talk it through properly and see if there's a genuine fit.
siya.tech · Hatim Siyawala · Siya Tech Ventures
We partner with entrepreneurs and companies to build and launch digital ventures — a venture studio for non-tech founders with a genuine unfair advantage, but no technical co-founder to build with.
These three get used interchangeably but they solve different problems. Click through to see how each one actually works.
In practice, that makes us less cash intensive and more founder friendly than a typical agency, more hands on than an incubator, and more deeply and continuously involved than an accelerator's fixed programme window.
Source: Global Startup Studio Network, 2022 Data Report.
Beyond the numbers: 300+ tech and product professionals trained through our delivery hub, 15+ startups supported into grants across the UK and Europe, and working relationships across AtomCTO, Barclays Eagle Labs, the NatWest London Accelerator, Google Campus, Antler, Seedlegals, AWS Startups, Tech Nation, Microsoft for Startups, Innovate UK and UKRI.
We only take on a small number of ventures at a time, so we're selective on both sides.
Your job here is the story, the customers and the fundraising, not the tech. We look for founders who've nailed product psychology, sales or distribution — or who carry a genuine unfair advantage through deep industry knowledge or network.
Beyond your fit, we need to genuinely believe in the idea and the space ourselves — the impact and the potential. This isn't a structure we offer everyone who asks.
Someone who understands what building a company costs, and can commit meaningfully, not necessarily a large sum, but real skin in the game alongside ours.
We've taken pure equity bets before. When the founder had nothing of their own on the line, the passion faded and the work stalled. It's why we moved to a cash and equity mix, not equity alone.
We price the build at our standard rate first, so there's an honest baseline. Under the venture studio route, we strip our own margin and reduce that cost by roughly 30–60%, in exchange for a small equity position. Try the numbers below.
Illustrative only. The real mix, and whether revenue share or a deferred milestone applies instead of or alongside equity, is negotiated case by case for each venture — and equity is never taken upfront.
There is no real value in that equity yet, not until there's genuine paid traction, or a couple of rounds of investment behind you. Until then, we're simply betting on you, and building that value together.
An MVP is rarely the end of the story — there's usually a Phase 2, and support after that. If you haven't yet landed external investment or revenue to cover the next stage, we extend a further tranche of equity rather than leaving you stranded mid-build. Nothing is ever asked for in advance.
This comes down to trust. We take the early risk, strip our own margin, and put real work in before you've paid us properly for it, in exchange for a slice of equity.
So if, after the MVP, a later phase, or somewhere through ongoing support, you land real traction or investment, we ask for first right to stay on as your tech partner — ahead of a freelancer, another agency or a fractional resource.
Once you're properly funded and self-sufficient, you have every right to build your own CTO and an in-house team, and we step back into a quieter, silent investor role. The only thing we ask: until an external team or agency comes into the picture, we remain the one you lean on.
If any of this resonates, I'd love to talk it through properly and see if there's a genuine fit.
siya.tech · Hatim Siyawala · Siya Tech Ventures