AI alone doesn't solve problems. Domain expertise alone doesn't scale. ZAAI Ventures partners with founders and operators who know their industry inside out, and together we build products that neither could build alone.
Thesis
Every industry has decisions that are still made manually, slowly, and with incomplete information. ZAAI Ventures finds the people who understand those decisions best, and gives them the AI infrastructure to automate them.
This is a selective company-building model. Not generic consulting, and not a broad incubator. We partner where the domain edge is strong enough to become a real product.
Every venture pairs a domain operator with the same AI, engineering, and go-to-market team. These are the products that playbook has shipped so far.
Education · AI Upskilling
AI education platform training professionals, from operators to engineers, to build and ship AI. Real projects, published portfolios, and instructors who run production AI systems every day.
StatusLive · in market
Visit TUTAI (opens in new tab)
Fashion & DTC · Creator Marketing
Creator marketing platform for direct-to-consumer brands. AI matches brands with Instagram and TikTok creators, then manages campaigns end-to-end with performance-based pricing tied to attributed sales.
StatusLive · in market
Visit Nixar (opens in new tab)
Fitness · Coaching Software
The business platform for personal trainers. Workout planning, scheduling, payments, and AI-assisted coaching in one place, so trainers train clients and the rest runs itself.
StatusLive · in market
Visit Liftter (opens in new tab)Logistics · Supply Chain for Fashion
Logistics platform for fashion brands, co-founded by Luís Roque. Scaled from Porto to global operations and acquired by Maersk, one of the world's largest logistics companies.
OutcomeAcquired by Maersk
In-house · Demand AI & Agents
ZAAI's in-house products: Horizon forecasts demand for retail and manufacturing; Pliney is the grounded AI agent for operations teams. Built end-to-end by the same team you would partner with.
StatusLive · in production
Explore Horizon & PlineyYour vertical. Your expertise. Our AI and GTM. The next product we build alongside a domain partner. Tell us about your domain edge.
Apply to ZAAI VenturesDeep knowledge of an industry. Real relationships with buyers. A clear understanding of the decisions that cost time and money. You've lived the problem. You don't need to explain why it matters.
Production-grade ML, data engineering, product development, and go-to-market. A team that has deployed AI across 11 industries and brought products to paying customers. We don't just build. We ship and sell.
Co-founded, co-owned. Shared equity, shared risk. From prototype to first paying customer to scale. The same playbook behind every venture in the portfolio, now available for your vertical.
You don't need to know AI. You need to know your industry better than anyone, and be ready to build something together.
If you have deep domain expertise and a strong view on where AI can become a real product, we'd like to hear it. We partner with a small number of founders each year, and we reply to every serious application within a week.
Prefer email? hello@zaai.ai