Ghent-based technology startup Holmes has launched with €1.1 million in pre-seed funding to automate software testing for the artificial intelligence era. The company aims to resolve the growing quality assurance bottleneck created by AI-accelerated development. The round, led by Syndicate One, signals strong confidence in the startup's mission to ensure product quality without sacrificing speed.
Addressing the Quality Assurance Bottleneck
The rapid adoption of AI coding assistants has enabled developers to write software faster, but this has placed immense pressure on traditional quality assurance. Manual testing processes struggle to keep pace, creating a significant bottleneck in the development lifecycle. This forces teams to choose between maintaining speed or letting bugs slip through to users, compromising the end product.
Co-founder Robin Praet explains that while AI helps write code, it does not guarantee the product works as users expect. Holmes was built to cover this exact gap, focusing on real-world usability rather than just code correctness. The platform addresses the moment when manual testing begins to hold back a company's growth and innovation.
An Autonomous Approach to Software Testing
Holmes introduces an autonomous QA platform that works differently from traditional tools that rely on manually written scripts. The system learns how a product works and how people interact with it, understanding the full user journey. Based on this knowledge, it creates and maintains tests that continuously verify these critical workflows as the product evolves.
The platform's comprehensive analysis is powered by five specialized AI agents designed to handle different testing scenarios. These agents cover standard user paths, edge cases, responsive layouts, accessibility, and error recovery. This multi-faceted approach ensures thorough testing of user-facing flows like sign-up, checkout, search, and navigation, catching problems before they reach users.
Experienced Founders and Strategic Backing
The company was founded by a team of three Belgian entrepreneurs with a history of successful exits. Robin Praet and Robbrecht Delrue previously co-founded Smartendr, which was acquired by OrderBilly. Sofie Buyse was an early hire at the legal AI tool Henchman, which was acquired by LexisNexis for a significant sum.
The €1.1 million round was led by Syndicate One and includes participation from funds NewSchool, RDY, and 100IN. The investor list also features prominent operators, including the founders of Aikido and a co-founder of Showpad. This strategic backing from experienced builders underscores the industry's need for a better QA solution in the AI era.
Future Plans and Market Entry
The new funding will be used to further develop the Holmes platform and expand its product and engineering teams. The company is also advised by a group of experienced tech leaders from companies like Collibra and Luzmo. This capital and expertise will accelerate the product's journey from its current stage to a wider commercial release.
Holmes is currently collaborating with 30 design partners to refine its product based on real-world feedback and use cases. This ensures the platform is built to address the most pressing challenges faced by modern software teams. The company plans to roll out broader access to its autonomous QA platform in the coming months as development progresses.
With its innovative autonomous platform and substantial pre-seed funding, Holmes is poised to redefine quality assurance in modern software development. By automating the critical process of testing, the company enables teams to leverage AI's speed without sacrificing product quality. This launch marks a significant step toward a future where software is built faster and more reliably.