GrantsFinder

Build Up Labs context

GrantsFinder was co-founded at Build Up Labs, the venture studio where I had joined as Entrepreneur in Residence to relaunch Tap My Back. The same studio environment — led by CEO Rui Gouveia — provided the strategic support, infrastructure and venture-building framework that enabled the creation of new products alongside the ongoing operation of Tap My Back.

I co-founded GrantsFinder with João Pereira, who served as CTO and led the technical development of the product. I led the venture as CEO, responsible for product direction, positioning, go-to-market and early commercial validation.

The problem

European funding discovery is a high-intent, low-awareness market. Organisations know they need funding; they do not always know the right platforms, search terms or eligibility criteria. The information is fragmented across dozens of portals, published in bureaucratic language, and updated on irregular schedules.

The core insight was that an AI-powered platform could aggregate, structure and simplify this information — making it discoverable and actionable for organisations that would otherwise miss opportunities or spend excessive time searching.

Product and positioning

The product combined an AI-driven discovery engine with a simplified interface that translated complex funding calls into plain-language summaries. Users could search by sector, funding type, eligibility and deadline — receiving matched opportunities rather than raw database listings.

Positioning focused on the user's outcome: 'find your next grant without the complexity.' The product was framed as a discovery tool, not a consultancy service. This distinction was important for both pricing and user expectations.

As part of the go-to-market process, we also experimented with content architecture approaches — including structured data and an experimental llms.txt layer — designed to make the platform discoverable in both traditional search and emerging AI-powered search systems. These were product-level experiments, not the core positioning of the venture.

Go-to-market and validation

Early validation came from direct conversations with grant seekers — universities, NGOs, SMEs and public institutions — who confirmed the pain of fragmented information and the value of a unified discovery layer.

The go-to-market motion combined content targeting high-intent queries with direct outreach to organisations that had publicly expressed funding needs. Landing pages were tested and iterated to lead with the user's pain before introducing the product.

The experience of building GrantsFinder — from product thesis through technical build, positioning iteration and early validation — was directly connected to the later development of AskCory. Both ventures shared the same founding team, the same studio environment, and the same approach to AI-powered product building.

Lessons

Building two AI ventures in parallel within a venture studio taught me that product velocity depends more on team alignment than on model access. The relationship with João Pereira as technical co-founder — clear roles, daily communication, shared accountability — was the operating system that made both products possible.

Rui Gouveia and Build Up Labs provided the strategic and studio-level support that enabled us to focus on product and market rather than infrastructure and administration. This support was active and meaningful, without confusing studio backing with direct operational roles.

These lessons now inform how I advise founders on co-founder dynamics, venture-studio partnerships, AI product development and the practical realities of building multiple products simultaneously.