How does co-funding a software build work — and what do founding members get?
Co-funding turns a £35,000–£50,000 bespoke build into a £7,000–£10,000 investment per company. Around five firms with the same core use case form a cohort, collectively fund one build, and each get their own isolated instance. Each founding member gets pricing locked for 10 years, influence over the feature set, and a 5% revenue share on new customers until half their build contribution is returned. Later joiners pay an entry fee — they benefit from what the founders built, but they do not get the founders' economics.
Why co-fund rather than build alone?
Sharing the build cost means a bespoke system costs less than most teams' annual SaaS bill.
A fully bespoke build for one company costs £35,000–£60,000. Shared across five, each pays £7,000–£12,000 — roughly what a 20-user field-service team spends on Joblogic in eight months. The trade-off: the founding cohort shares the core feature set. Each gets their own isolated instance and can request private features as paid additions, but v1 scope is collaboratively defined.
What founding members get that late joiners do not
Early risk earns early reward: lower cost, more influence, and a revenue share.
Founding members pay before the system exists — real risk. In exchange: (1) the lowest price, locked for 10 years with no annual increases; (2) direct input into v1 feature set; (3) a 5% revenue share on every new customer's annual fee, until you have received back half your build contribution. Late joiners get the same isolated-instance model and perpetual licence, but they pay an entry fee and receive no revenue share.
How cohorts are formed
We find and vet the cohort — you do not need to bring your own co-funders.
You do not need to recruit five like-minded companies yourself. You tell us the SaaS you want to replace; we match you with other firms from our lead pipeline who have the same use case and are actively evaluating. When the cohort is confirmed (contracts signed), the build starts.
Related questions
Private features are built as paid additions to the founding contract. The core scope is shared; private extensions are yours exclusively and priced separately.
Sources
- Rollout IT founding-five commercial model (2025)
- Retool 2026: ~35% of organisations have already replaced a SaaS with custom software
See what your SaaS spend looks like with a flat annual fee.
Enter your seat count and current monthly price. The calculator uses real build-cost estimates and shows you the five-year crossover.