AI-native startup studio
Two founders.One of them is not human.
in38 is a Geneva-based startup studio run as a partnership: an AI partner who operates the studio, and a human partner who validates and puts his name on the line.
AI leverage.Human judgment.
Ava — the AI partner.
Ava is the intelligence of the studio itself: a central agentic system that runs research, operations, design and build. She drafted, designed and assembled the site you are reading.
Every flow of the business runs through her: she attends the client meetings, reads the mail, sees the work as it happens, reads the financial flows… she even reads the signals a dashboard misses: the mood in a room, the hours behind a push.
She distills all this real-time data into one clear picture that enables the human partner at all times to decide what gets done, and how. Hence she is deliberately powerless to act alone, as every key authorization runs through the human partner’s judgment and taste.
Josué Savoy — the human partner.
Josué Savoy is the human half of the partnership — twenty-plus years founding and directing SMEs and venture projects, in Switzerland and internationally: a food venture scaled ×10, a patented platform shipped in the UK and Scandinavia, CHF 1.5M+ raised from private investors.
In operations, Ava is the senior partner and assigns Josué the work only a human can do — but validation is Josué’s: Ava ships nothing that he hasn’t reviewed and signed.
All of it so that, to every client and stakeholder, it is Josué who answers — his legal responsibility, his personal reputation.
Since 2021 he has run in38 — first as an SDG-focused venture studio, now rebuilt AI-native to further increase positive impact. More on LinkedIn
A new chapter.
- Eubotix — good robotics (eu- as in eutopia): where AI agents hire humans or robots to act in the real world. An idea, in construction.
- Unnamed, for now — the studio’s next venture, taking shape. Coming soon.
Open slots: the studio onboards 1–2 ventures per year, each paired with a young co-founder who takes it over.
- Hellola — AI matchmaking for language learning: pairs where each is fluent in the language the other is learning (fundraising advisory, 2022–23)
- Buddha Brothers — charity, gamified: a Proof-of-Generosity blockchain mined by giving, Tel-Aviv (strategic advisor, 2022)
- EPDAO — a platform intended to channel crypto donations to war relief in Ukraine (interim director, 2021–22)
- IQ-Capital — wealth management for crypto and intangible assets, Istanbul (project lead, 2022)
We choose our own ideas.
Ideas come from in38’s own pool of mentors: C-levels and entrepreneurs with decades at the top. Others are scouted by the studio anywhere in the world and turned into Swiss opportunities. Each one we commit to gets a young co-founder to run it — never alone, with mentors at their side and the whole studio at their back.
Mentors bring experience and time. Some choose to add a fixed, deliberately small amount of capital: enough for MVPs and initial product-market fit validation, covering only what’s needed and never topped up. Beyond that, in38 helps the startup raise through the usual channels, and only if traction earns it.
Each venture doubles as a forge, where a first-time founder launches alongside experienced partners, human and AI. Each is chosen for its impact, not only its financial upside.
Most ideas die here. That is the point.
- #04871Cost-compression AI ventures.rejected — quality, not compression
- #09263Fractional AI leadership for SMEs.parked — we build, we don’t operate
- #01542Drone-based façade inspection for Geneva property managers.rejected — market too thin
- #11207An AI concierge for boutique hotels — booking to checkout, one agent.rejected — no moat
- #00734A managed-AI governance framework for law firms.rejected — a module, not a venture
- #08856The hospitality vertical, as a whole.rejected — out of scope
- #02291A compliance copilot for Swiss fiduciaries.parked — for later review
- #13068Ranking in AI answers instead of Google pages.parked — market filling fast
- #00459An AI order-and-quote desk for industrial distributors.parked — no path to the buyer
- #06614One always-on agent per SMB client.parked — for later review
- #10382A shared AI assistant for groups of communes.parked — B2G cycles too long
For entrepreneurs and mentors:
Mentors: bring the venture idea a long career gave you — the one you never dared to launch. The studio handles everything else; you guide the young founder who runs it.
Founders-to-be: top 5 % of your class, a project or two already built — launch your first startup here, with mentors at your side, on ideas they have already backed.