Research
Market scans, competitor analysis and synthesis of user interviews take hours with AI instead of days. The team spends its time deciding, not reading.
STUDIO
We turned company building into a process.
A venture studio isn’t a single company; it’s a system that produces companies. At Thoth every idea walks the same disciplined path: discover, validate, build, scale. The process repeats, and we learn more with each cycle.
MODEL
Not a capital fund, not an agency. A co-founder.
A capital fund puts money into companies from the outside. An agency builds someone else’s product and hands it over. A venture studio builds the company itself: it develops the idea, assembles the team, provides the first capital and stays at the table as a co-founder.
The model’s strength is repeatability. Every company launch reuses the same team, the same infrastructure, the same lessons learned. The hundreds of problems a startup has to solve from scratch are already solved here.
| Capital fund | Agency | Venture studio | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Whose idea? | Founder’s | Client’s | Shared |
| Where does the team come from? | Founder recruits | Agency supplies, then leaves | Studio supplies, stays in the company |
| Capital | The fund provides it | None | The studio provides it |
| Risk | Spread across portfolio | On the client | Shared |
| Outcome | Equity | Invoice | A jointly owned company |
METHOD
Four stages, a clear decision at each.
-
Discover
Target 2–4 weeks
- Goal
- Find the right problem.
- What we do
- Thesis-driven market research, 20+ user interviews, competitor and alternative analysis, AI-assisted data scans.
- Output
- Problem statement, target segment, initial value proposition.
- Decision
- Is the problem big and urgent enough? If not, we stop here.
-
Validate
Target 4–6 weeks
- Goal
- Prove there is demand for the solution.
- What we do
- Clickable prototype, waitlist or pre-sales, pricing tests, pilot customer conversations (B2B) or a small-scale campaign (B2C).
- Output
- Evidence of willingness to pay, draft unit economics, first roadmap.
- Decision
- Worth building? If the data says no, we archive what we learned and move to the next idea.
-
Build
Target 8–12 weeks
- Goal
- A working company and a product in production.
- What we do
- Incorporation, completing the founding team, first capital, product development in weekly releases, launch on our own design system and infrastructure.
- Output
- Live product, first users/customers, operations in place.
- Decision
- Are early users retaining? Do the early signals justify scaling?
-
Scale
Duration 12 months and beyond
- Goal
- Product-market fit and scale.
- What we do
- Growth experiments, sales and marketing engine, team expansion, preparation for the next funding round, new markets where warranted.
- Output
- A growing company standing on its own.
- Studio’s role
- We stay at the table as co-founders; operational weight shifts to the company’s own team.
AI
AI isn’t a feature. It’s how we work.
This is where our speed comes from. What lets a small team do the work of ten in a traditional setup is that every process is built with AI.
Product development
The codebase, test infrastructure and design system are built to work alongside AI agents. That’s what makes a weekly release cadence possible.
Operations
Customer support, documentation, financial reporting and legal drafts are prepared with AI and approved by humans. Every portfolio company inherits this infrastructure ready-made.
Growth
Content production, campaign variants and experiment analysis scale with AI. The growth team focuses on what to do; how to do it is automated.
Every company we build is born AI-native: the capability competitors try to bolt on later is the foundation of ours.
SOURCE
From inside and from outside. Both go through the same discipline.
Inside — Thesis-driven discovery
As a team we develop theses about specific markets and technologies. Ideas born from these theses enter Discovery and find a founder along the way.
Outside — Founder and corporate applications
Founders, domain experts and organizations who bring their ideas to us. Applications go through the same four-stage process; the difference is that the idea’s owner is at the table.
The same four stages
- Discover
- Validate
- Build
- Scale
A company
Common ground
Whatever the source, the decision criteria are the same: Is it a big, urgent problem? Can it be solved with software and a repeatable model? Is it a business we can carry for years?
INFRASTRUCTURE
Everything that’s ready on day one.
Product and design
Product management, UX research, interface design and the shared design system used across the portfolio.
Engineering and infrastructure
Senior engineers, ready code templates, CI/CD, our own cloud infrastructure, a security and compliance baseline.
Growth and GTM
Positioning, pricing, content, performance marketing, sales process design (B2B) and growth loops (B2C).
Finance, legal and operations
Incorporation, accounting, contract templates, KVKK/GDPR compliance, HR processes. Founders don’t lose time here.
Capital
We fund the discovery and build stages. For later rounds, we offer our capital partner network and preparation support.
Network
The accumulated relationships of the co-founders and the portfolio: first customers, advisors, talent pool, business partners.
PARTNERSHIP
No single template. Every company deserves its own structure.
Some venture studios apply the same equity split and the same terms to every company. We don’t work that way. The source of the idea, the founder’s contribution, the capital required and the market’s structure differ for every company, and the partnership structure follows suit.
Our principle
Terms are discussed not in the first meeting, but after we’ve gotten to know each other, and always in writing. No surprises; every clause is explained.
How it’s determined
- Where did the idea come from and how mature is it?
- Is the founder full-time, and in which role?
- Which resources does the studio commit, and for how long?
- What are the company’s capital needs and roadmap?
MARKETS
Two markets, one studio. They feed each other.
B2C products teach us speed, user instinct and growth loops. B2B products teach discipline, sales process and long-term customer relationships. Building both under one roof lets us carry the best practices of each side to the other.
The onboarding flow we learned on Sakla.co moved into ThothVPN Business. The identity and security infrastructure we built for ThothVPN became the foundation for every B2B product that followed.
Frequently asked questions
Is Thoth a capital fund?
No. Thoth builds companies itself and joins as a co-founder. We are not a fund that puts capital into outside companies.
If I apply with my idea, will you take it?
No. Applications are reviewed in confidence. If we decide to work on an idea together, terms are set in writing. Only the ideas of companies we build together enter the studio.
Do you only work with founders in Istanbul?
No. Our team is in Istanbul, but founders and products can come from anywhere in the region. We expect intense in-person collaboration during the build stage; afterwards it’s flexible.
My idea isn’t software; it’s hardware or a service. Does it fit?
Our focus is SaaS. For ideas where software isn’t at the center, we’re not the right partner.
Who holds the majority at the end of the process?
It varies by company. Our partnership model is flexible and determined through mutual discussion.
How long does the studio stay in the company after launch?
We’re permanent co-founders. As operational weight shifts to the company’s own team, our role moves to board level and strategic support.
I’ve already founded a company and have a product. Can I apply?
Yes. Early-stage companies can accelerate with the studio’s resources. The structure depends on the existing company’s situation.
I’m a corporate; we have an idea internally. How do we proceed?
See our corporate partnerships page or get in touch directly. We offer joint spin-off and venture co-creation models.