The Monzo mafia are back in business, with former co-founder Jonas Templestein and ex-VP of architecture Oliver Beattie on the hunt for funds for a new startup that aims to build generative AI coding tools.
Dubbed Nustom, the startup's business pitch states: "In 10 years' time, we believe that the majority of software will be made by people with no technical background, collaborating with an AI. What today takes weeks or months and a team of specialists will be accessible to everyone, take only minutes, and cost very little. Instead of one-size-fits-all products, everyone will be make their own tools, customized to their needs."
Templestein quit Monzo in December after nine years at the app-only bank. At Nustom he is joined by Oliver Beattie, formerly Monzo's VP of architecture, who left the bank after six years in 2021 and has since had roles at fintechs like Imprint and Pleo.
Another Monzo alumnus recruited is chief operating officer, Maria Campbell, a former head of people at Monzo, and most recently COO of challenger bank Griffin. The founding team is finalised with two engineering leads, former Monzo staff engineer Fred Jonsson and Eugenio Marchiori of Google.
Nustom intends to start by building SaaS products using the foundation models built by the likes of OpenAI, Anthropic and Mistral.
The firm says it will have human engineers in place initially to "guarantee the quality of the software until our AI agents are reliable enough to do it without assistance".