AI · A passion of ours

AI is the biggest lever we have. The portfolio is the lab.

We believe maximising the use of AI across our portfolio is the single biggest thing a family office or fund can do today to influence the value its portfolio creates. So we’re putting real time, real capital and real conviction into making that happen — starting with our inaugural Claude-a-thon, June 2026.

Why this. Why now.

The operating leverage of a small, sharp team has just gone up by an order of magnitude.

Claude — and the broader shift it represents — is genuinely changing the way we all work. Most teams are still using it like a slightly better Google. The teams and individuals who get ahead of this — really ahead, in their actual day-to-day — will pull away from the ones who don’t.

We think the gap opens up over the next twelve months. We’d like to be on the right side of it. So would our founders.

If a family office or fund only does one thing this year to compound the value of its portfolio, we believe this is it. The capital is allocated. The teams are in place. The lever is operating leverage. AI is what pulls it.

How we work the lever

Three pillars.

We don’t hand our portfolio companies a webinar and a Slack channel. We bring them together, work alongside them, and share what we learn forward.

01

Cross-pollination

Founders, finance, advisors and engineers in one room. The CFO hears the founder. The founder hears the engineer. The advisor hears all of it. The best ideas in our portfolio rarely come from a single seat — they show up when seats are mixed.

02

Hands-on, not slideware

No conferences. No pitch events. No three days of slides. Long, uninterrupted co-work on real projects, with one workflow shipped live in a real piece of work by the time we leave.

03

Pay it forward

What we learn we share. With our portfolio, with our partners, and over time — if it works — with other family offices and funds trying to do the same thing.

9–12 June 2026 · Scarlet Hall, Cheshire

The first Claude-a-thon. It happened.

Four days. Twenty-two people. One question: how do we actually change the way we work? Here’s what we did, how it worked, and what the room told us — published in full, the good and the honest.

Inaugural · June 2026

The Claude-a-thon

A four-day lock-in at a (very nice) house in the Cheshire countryside. A deliberately mixed group — founders, finance, advisory and techies — learning from each other and rebuilding the way we work using Claude Cowork.

When
9 – 12 June 2026
Where
Scarlet Hall · Shocklach, Cheshire
Who
22 people · A hand-picked mix from across the portfolio & friends of the firm
Format
Tuesday morning → Friday breakfast

Nobody needed to be technical. They needed to be curious, generous with what they knew, and willing to roll their sleeves up. By the closing circle, people who arrived saying “I’m not technical” had shipped websites, built agents, and cleared the admin tasks they’d been dodging for months.

Costs — the house, the chef and everything on-site — were covered by Mustard Kick. Travel was on you.

The long table at golden hour, Claude-a-thon 2026 Scarlet Hall · Cheshire · June 2026
22
People — founders, finance, advisory and engineers, deliberately mixed
4
Days unplugged — no commute, no inbox to hide in
19
Big-5 team profiles mapped, with AI scaffolding designed for the gaps
44
Superpowers named out loud — and a room that left building

How it worked

Four days, one arc.

Sofas, screens, flipcharts and a log fire — deliberately informal, deliberately residential. Real work, no boardroom, and nowhere to hide in an inbox.

Day 1 · Tuesday

Arrive

Land, settle, eat well, talk. The names on the WhatsApp list become actual people around the firepit — and it turns out everyone’s normal.

Day 2 · Wednesday

Share

A long, deep morning on how everyone actually sees AI — from “answer to everything” to healthy scepticism. Trust built fast. Afternoon: levelling up the practical basics in small groups.

Day 3 · Thursday

Build

Two teams, one collective mission in the morning — then small groups building something real and close to home. Websites shipped, long-dodged admin tasks done, agents born. Closing circle by the fire.

Day 4 · Friday

Land

A long, relaxed breakfast, a lot of very tired brains, and the journey home — carrying rather more than anyone arrived with, including a plan for Monday morning.

Evening session by the fire Time, inspiration, curiosity, vision — on the flipchart A small-group breakout Sharing work in progress The whole room at work An afternoon working session

The feedback · What went well

The room did the work.

Almost every voice in the closing circle came back to the same things — and they weren’t about the software.

Trust

Safety arrived on day one

The biggest pre-event worry — “what happens if there isn’t trust in the room?” — never materialised. It was okay to be stupid, okay to ask the basic question, okay to fail in public. Adoption goes from a trickle to a torrent when that’s true.

Diversity of minds

Unlike-minded people

We spend our lives with people who think like us. Two days with people who think the opposite way — same problems, completely different approaches, none of them wrong — was repeatedly named the single most valuable thing.

No cliques

Everyone moved around

A fly on the wall couldn’t have told you who already knew each other. People swapped groups, sofas and dinner seats all week — unlike every other event anyone could remember.

Practical takeaways

Real tools, instantly usable

Voice transcription, connectors, skills, sub-agents, model choice and the “interview me back” pattern — the snippets people took straight home to their businesses, learned by building, not by watching.

Confidence

The fear evaporated

“I’m not technical” quietly died over the four days. People who arrived feeling miles behind left having built things — a website live, a months-dodged admin task done in two hours, agents running.

The human bit

You couldn’t do this on Zoom

The fire, the meals, the sauna, the late conversations. Individual chats were as transformative as anything Claude did. The unanimous verdict: the people in the room are what made it.

The feedback · In their own words

Straight from the closing circle.

Lightly tidied from the recording, shared with the room’s blessing — and anonymised here out of courtesy.

“I arrived nervous for myself, our business and the human condition. I’m leaving invigorated, excited and amazingly happy.”
A founder
“You end up working with like-minded people most of the time. A couple of days with people who think just the opposite way has been really, really interesting.”
An adviser
“Having these two days to just get stuck in removes the fear and anxiety from even getting started. That admin task I’d put off for months? Two hours.”
An operator
“Previous success does not guarantee success in the future. If we don’t get ahead on this, other groups of people will. It’s not a little more efficient — it’s completely game-changing.”
A portfolio chairman
“I thought I was really bad at Claude — then everyone saying they’re bad can do so much more. I’m just grateful for people showing me how to actually use it.”
A first-timer
“We’re a product of our environment, and pulling this environment together — that is the power line. I’ve taken as much from the individual conversations as from Claude itself.”
A managing director
“We all came here thinking AI was going to take over the world — but in reality, it’s us. We’re the people asking the right questions, and it’s the engine to deliver the answers.”
An investor
“All previous human progress has been about imagination. Use AI to expand our horizons — not in a way that drowns our imaginations chasing efficiencies.”
From the room

The outcomes

What people actually left with.

This is the portfolio-value bit. Not vibes — commitments, made out loud in front of the room, with owners and dates.

The setting

The environment did half the work.

A private hall in the Cheshire countryside: long tables, log fires, good food and space to think. People moved between sofas, breakouts, the kitchen and the gardens all week — and that mixing is where most of the value came from.

The dining barn set for dinner The kitchen between sessions The gardens at Scarlet Hall

What’s next

Claude-a-thon 2.0 is already being plotted.

The format works because of the people, the place and the rhythm — and all three travel. If you’d like to collaborate with us on something similar, please connect with us.

Connect with us Get in touch