Our portfolio

These are the companies we build and run ourselves.These are the companieswe build and run ourselves.

Not case studies. Not clients. Our own businesses where we test everything we later teach.

3 live companiesAll launched 2025–2026

The companies

What we've built so far.What we've built so far.

Every company here is real, running, and ours.

Consumer Brand · Live

allium.

Science-led supplements built around aged black garlic. Not a trend. A biological argument.

We started by building a garlic shop to test AI in e-commerce. The deeper we went into the science, the harder it became to ignore what the research was saying. Over a thousand published studies on a single compound — and no serious supplement brand built around it. So we built one. UK GMP-certified. No fillers. No noise. Just the science, formulated properly.

Launched: 2026 · alliumsupplements.com · Products: 2 live, more in development

Visit allium.Read the build story

Service Venture · Live

Skillity

An AI interview platform built on thirty years of knowing that the process was wrong.

Hiring has always been theatre. AI-polished CVs and rehearsed scripts made it worse. We built Skillity because we'd spent decades in Fortune Global 500 companies making hiring calls, and the real signals — judgment under pressure, genuine motivation, attitude — were never on the scorecard. They were felt, in spite of the process. Skillity surfaces what most interviews miss: the Hidden 80% beneath a polished surface answer.

Launched: 2026 · skillity.ai · Framework: SWA FitModel®

Visit Skillity Read the build story

Core Business · Live

Garlic Shop

Where it all started. The retail project that became a proving ground — and then became something bigger.

Garlic Shop was the original brief: a specialist marketplace for people who take garlic seriously. It became our first real test of AI in e-commerce — content generation, product curation, SEO at scale. What it taught us about the science eventually led directly to allium. It's still running. It's still teaching us things.

Founded: 2025 · garlicshop.co.uk · Parent of: allium.

Visit Garlic Shop Read the build story

How we build

Every company starts the same way.Every company starts the same way.

No pitch decks. No grand thesis about a market. Just a problem worth solving, a team that can move, and the discipline to automate everything we can from day one.

AI-first from the start

We don't retrofit automation into existing operations. We design processes around what AI can genuinely do — and test that assumption inside the business before we ever talk about it elsewhere.

Build to run, not to flip

We're not building towards an exit. Every company in the portfolio is meant to work well for a long time. That changes every decision — from hiring to product roadmap to how we think about growth.

Learn in public

When something interesting happens inside one of our businesses — a discovery, a mistake, a pivot we didn't plan — we write about it. The Insights section is our build diary. Not a marketing channel.

Why we build

The portfolio isn't a side project. It's the whole point.The portfolio isn't a side project.It's the whole point.

We build our own companies, push automation inside them, and only teach what survives real operating pressure.

BUILD

We start or back real companies

TEST

We push automation inside them

TEACH

What works, we bring to others

How we classify what we build

Three types. One discipline.Three types. One discipline.

Three categories, based on how we're involved.

1 live

CONSUMER BRAND

Physical or direct-to-consumer businesses where the brand, the science, and the supply chain are all ours to get right.

1 live

SERVICE VENTURE

Technology or service businesses built to solve a problem we've encountered firsthand, not a gap we theorised about.

1 live

CORE BUSINESS

The operating companies that support or anchor the wider portfolio, run for the long term rather than a quick return.

From inside the portfolio

We write about what actually happens.We write about what actually happens.

Honest accounts of what we built, what changed, and what it taught us.

allium.

We Started a Garlic Shop. We Didn’t Expect to End Up Here.

January 2026

Skillity

We Built an Interview Platform. Because Hiring is Broken.

January 2026

Garlic Shop

We Built a Garlic Shop. Yes, Really.

December 2025

Read all build diaries

Invest or co-build

Want in?

We're not raising a fund. We're looking for people who want to back a specific business or build one properly with us.

Back existing

Back an existing company

If you see the potential in one of our subsidiaries and want a stake, we'll have a direct conversation about trading, operations, and roadmap. Open books. No theatre.

Build together

Build something new together

You bring capital and domain knowledge. We bring the infrastructure, the AI-first approach, and the operating experience. We build it together.

Talk to us about it

Any questions?

The portfolio is real. The conversation can be too.The portfolio is real.The conversation can be too.

Whether you're curious about what we're building, want to understand how we work, or think there might be a fit — tell us what's on your mind.

We don't take on every conversation. But we answer every one.