AI Hackathon main abstract image

AI Hackathon

Accelerating Prosperity with AI

Powered by Ada Ventures

Date:
Friday 2nd May 2025 from 9:00 am check in, 10:00 am start to 5:30 pm end

Location:
Central London near Tottenham Court Road Station

Applications open:
Monday 14th April to Friday 25th April
Apply here

Collaborators

Google Cloud Logo
Mollie Logo
Eversheds Sutherland logo
Bubble logo
The Tech Bros logo

Dream Big. Build Today!

The next wave of AI founders starts here.

We're unlocking bold ideas with real capital, expert support, and powerful tools to help you turn vision into MVP, fast. Join a first-of-its-kind hackathon designed to launch the future of AI.

Ada Ventures is investing £100,000 in the winning team 
(T&Cs apply), alongside:

Google Cloud logo

£100,000 in Google Cloud  credits

to power your infrastructure.
Mollie logo

Up to £150,000 in payment processing from Mollie

over 18 months, plus premium onboarding support. 
(See Mollie’s T&Cs).
Eversheds Sutherland logo

£12,500 in legal services from Eversheds Sutherland

to complete your investment round.
Bubble logo

Childcare support during the hackathon from Bubble

for selected participants, breaking barriers identified in the Alison Rose Review.

Who it’s for

  • Whether you're a designer who brings concepts to life in Figma, an aspiring founder who prototypes with low-code tools like Lovable or Databutton, or perhaps you’re a full-stack dev who can spin up a working MVP in a few hours — this is for you
  • We’re looking for builders, product designers, and software engineers from all backgrounds
  • Individuals or teams with bold, practical ideas   
  • Anyone passionate about solving real problems with GenAI 
  • Must be 18+ years old

What we’re looking for

Bring your creativity to build a rapid MVP in areas that are overlooked or underserved. We will reveal the detailed themes for the hackathon on the day.

We’re looking for builders who can ship, not polish. Raw MVPs are totally fine. Just make sure they’re yours.

Why this is different

This hackathon is built to launch real companies. We’re creating a space where the best, not just the best-connected founders can thrive with meaningful backing to match.  

Whether you're a solo builder or part of a team, come with a bold idea and be in with the chance to leave with the resources to build something transformative. 

We will have a pitching session at the end of the day with a brilliant panel of judges to decide the winner.

Applications now open. Spots are limited.

Apply here

How the day will run

9:00 am

Arrivals and check-in.

10:00 am to 11:00 am

Teams will be presented with a list of up to 5 broad areas they can build something in. They must then submit a short “idea card” of what they intend to build.

This card will explain:

  • Name of the idea
  • Problem or opportunity being addressed
  • Target user

11:00 am to 3:00 pm

Hackathon starts. Working lunch at 12:30 pm for 45 mins.

4:00 pm to 5:00 pm

Demos and judging.

5:30 pm

Close and end.

Building Rules & Ethos

You’ll build and demo your product idea on the same day. We’ll kick off at 10:00 am and you’ll have until 3:00pm to submit your MVP. Demos start at approximately 4:00 pm and end at 5:00 pm. (3 Mins Per Team).

What you can and can’t do

We want this to be fair and high-energy. So here’s the deal:

Icon - checkmark

You can use

  • Publicly available libraries, templates, or open-source tools
  • Your own skills, past learnings, and ideas
  • Basic project scaffolding or boilerplate you build on the day
Icon - cross

You can’t

  • Bring a pre-existing MVP or product and pass it off as new
  • Submit something that was mostly built before 2nd May 2025
  • Use private or proprietary codebases built earlier

Everything you demo should be built on the day.

Apply here

T&Cs for the winning team to receive an investment offer

  • Venture must become a UK incorporated entity
  • Venture is within one of our investment themes and not in excluded sectors
  • Founding team will pursue the venture full-time
  • Investment will be subject to contract and satisfactory due diligence
  • Deal structure: 7% ordinary shares for £100k

Judging Criteria

  • Speed of Execution – How far did you get with the limited time and resources?
  • Originality – How non-obvious or differentiated is the idea?  
  • Clarity of Problem/Opportunity – Is it solving a significant pain point or addressing a massive opportunity?
  • Team Potential – Could this team or founder be backed to scale something big?
  • Demo Quality – Does the MVP do something valuable today?

Collaborators

Mollie logo
Mollie offers a single platform for businesses to get paid and manage their money. One that makes payments, reconciliation, reporting, fraud prevention, and financing simple for all – from startups to enterprises. Today, more than 250,000 businesses use Mollie to drive revenue, reduce costs, and manage funds.
Eversheds Sutherland logo
Eversheds Sutherland is a pre-eminent, global, full service law firm. Our global venture capital team provides a full range of legal services and strategic advice to venture capital investors, corporate investors, family offices and sovereign wealth investors, together with supporting the entrepreneurs and tomorrow’s leading companies that benefit from this investment.
Bubble logo
Bubble is a community of over 300k parents and vetted babysitters & nannies built on trust. We provide the missing piece of your childcare puzzle - recommended babysitters and nannies who can be with you at short notice. Whether it’s a planned event, an unexpected situation or just a need to be in two places at once, we’ve got your back.
The Tech Bros logo
The Tech Bros enables women in highly technical fields to launch their startup through our hands-on events & accelerator programme (launching in July 2025). Through our hackathons, panels & workshops, we aid women with STEM backgrounds in going from 0 to 1 through co-founder matching, MVP coding, and relationships with investors.
Google Cloud logo
Google Cloud is helping businesses use smart data and AI to find insights and optimise resources.

  • Dedicated Startups Success Manager
  • Enhanced Support
  • Exclusive Startup Perks
  • Exclusive Google-wide benefits