Independent AI studio · Paris · Est. 2024

Building software that
tastes like phở.

The independent studio that designs, ships, and operates production AI. Twenty-two live products across intelligence, content, infrastructure, knowledge, compliance, and consumer — built for teams that need software that works on day one and still works on day one thousand.

22
Live products in production today
12
Verticals shipped — intelligence to F&B
440k/min
Peak ingest — Camoni segmentation engine
0–1
Operators per product — fully autonomous to lightly supervised
Trusted by
Café Nuances Grafikmente Saveurs d'Étoiles Trading desks European newsrooms F&B operators Compliance teams

The studio for AI products that ship — and stay shipped.

PhoLabs designs and operates intelligence platforms, content engines, MCP infrastructure, and knowledge tools under one opinionated stack. Same architecture, same conventions, same standards across every product we touch.

Twelve hours of architecture for every minute of interface. Every product has a live domain, real users, and operating metrics — no demos that won't deploy, no prototypes without a path to revenue.

For teams that need bespoke systems rather than off-the-shelf products, our consulting branch — ShowdownLab — engineers custom AI for digital marketing, e-commerce, luxury, and trading desks. Same studio, same standards, different menu.

See all 22 products →
Intelligence Content Factories MCP Gateways Knowledge Engines MarTech Creative AI Finance F&B Tools Media Security Intelligence Content Factories MCP Gateways Knowledge Engines MarTech Creative AI Finance F&B Tools Media Security

Argus reads the world, so your analysts don't have to.

60+ live world feeds ingested in real time. Threat, conflict, sentiment, and market-impact analysis — plotted on an interactive geo-map and streamed to a Claude Opus analyst chat. Built for desks that need decision-grade intel, not headlines.

Visit Argus ↗
Argus

KondensMe turns hours of source into hours saved.

YouTube, podcasts, PDFs, course material — distilled into layered, queryable knowledge. Knowledge graphs, chronological walkthroughs, automatic glossary extraction. Ten hours of source becomes 500 pages of structured, navigable notes.

Visit KondensMe ↗
KondensMe

Camoni Network — segmentation at the speed of intent.

440,000 contacts ingested in under a minute. Natural-language segmentation, K-means clustering, multichannel campaigns, A/B testing, autopilot. Built for growth teams that need to ship at scale without an MMP duct-taped to a CDP.

Visit Camoni ↗
Camoni Network

Lumina — one image to a campaign-ready asset set.

Image to full campaign in six orchestrated nodes: audit, five-persona brainstorm, production factory, viral scoring, video output via Seedance 1.5 Pro. React Router v7, Clerk auth, graph integration — production-ready out of the box.

Visit Lumina ↗
Lumina

Eight disciplines, one studio.

From real-time intelligence to consumer anti-spam, every product PhoLabs ships draws from one of these capability stacks. Same conventions, same deploy pipeline, same team — pick the discipline that matches your problem.

I · Intelligence Real-time streaming pipelines Argus
II · Knowledge Distillation & knowledge graphs KondensMe
III · Infrastructure MCP gateways & tool routing PhoLabs MCP
IV · Marketing Segmentation & multichannel Camoni Network
V · Messaging Conversational interfaces PocketMoni
VI · Consumer Identity & anti-spam QuiAppel
VII · Compliance Legal AI & audit pipelines RGPD Simplement
VIII · Content Automated publishing engines LaVar Football

22 products. One stack. Zero throwaway code.

Every PhoLabs product has a live domain, a deploy pipeline, and real users. We don't ship demos that won't deploy, prototypes that won't scale, or features that aren't measured.

Real-time geopolitical intelligence. Automated sports content engines. MCP gateway infrastructure. F&B ingredient catalogs. Plus the bespoke client work shipped through our consulting branch ShowdownLab — for digital marketing, e-commerce, luxury, and trading desks. All built on one opinionated stack, so the next product ships faster than the last.

See all 22 products →

The portfolio.

Thirteen products in production Edited by CACAR HOLDING
LaVar Football — project cover
Sports · Newsletter

LaVar Football

French football, every Monday 7am. Ligue 1, Les Bleus, transfers — a weekly brief that frames the conversation. 2,400+ subscribers. lavar.football.

TVZap — project cover
Consumer · Media

TVZap

The free French TV guide that loads in 800ms — no pop-ups, no third-party cookies. 25+ DTT channels, real-time schedule. tvzap.app.

Immobilier Closer — project cover
Real Estate · Data

Immobilier Closer

French real estate, understood in 4 minutes. Notarial market analysis, precise calculators, 12 city guides. 12,400 subs, 38% open rate.

Auto Moto et Moi — project cover
Automotive · Newsletter

Auto Moto et Moi

Cars, closer to you — no fluff. Hands-on reviews, EV deep-dives, 2026 buying guide comparing 120 models. 4 specialist journalists, zero OEM budget.

Baby Closer — project cover
Parenting · Consumer

Baby Closer

Independent parenting platform for parents of 0–3-year-olds. 92k active users, 28k subscribers, 4.9/5, 200+ retailer integrations, salaried midwives and pediatricians.

Senior Closer — project cover
Seniors · Newsletter

Senior Closer

Curiosity doesn't retire. Weekly newsletter for older readers: 4 curated articles every Friday — health, finance, family, digital. Issue #123. Audio + text natively.

Golden Chaos — project cover
Finance · ShowdownLab

Golden Chaos

Real-time sector-rotation tracker. Visualizes capital migration across markets to inform allocation decisions for active trading desks.

RGPD Simplement — project cover
Compliance · B2B SaaS

RGPD Simplement

GDPR compliance, simplified. 366 CNIL registries, automated audits, breach management, 24/7 AI legal assistant. Hosted in France.

QuiAppel — project cover
Consumer · Anti-spam

QuiAppel

France's free reverse phone directory. Identify any caller in one click — spam, scam, call center, or person. 117k+ flagged numbers.

Nodium Corvex — project cover
Security · B2B

Nodium Corvex

Real-time facial recognition for connected eyewear. Stream, identify, and alert in under a second — straight to the operator dashboard.

PocketMoni — project cover
Messaging · ShowdownLab

PocketMoni

WhatsApp-native AI assistant for non-technical users — planning, content, knowledge. Five-package monorepo on Fastify, WebSocket, React Native, FastAPI, Next.js.

SDE Catalog — project cover
F&B · Tools

SDE Catalog

Vector search for ingredients — by name, by season, or by feeling. Query "clear sky" or "early autumn" and get matches. Custom embeddings.

PhoLabs MCP Gateway — project cover
Infrastructure · MCP

PhoLabs MCP Gateway

One MCP endpoint, every internal tool exposed. Unified auth, rate-limiting, routing — the connective tissue across all PhoLabs products in production.

From thesis to production in four moves.

A structured engagement that gets your product live in weeks, not quarters. No staging-forever, no demos-without-deploys, no scope creep.

01

Thesis intake

1 day

You share the problem. We pressure-test the thesis, the audience, and the moat. If we don't believe in it, we tell you — and we recommend who would.

02

Architecture

2–5 days

We design the system end-to-end: data model, deploy target, observability, and the path to first paying user. You get a written plan, a fixed quote, and a deadline.

03

Build

1–4 weeks

We ship to a real domain with real auth, real data, and real money flow. Daily progress logs, weekly demos, async-first communication. No surprises.

04

Operate

Ongoing

We run it for you, hand off to your team with documentation, or spin it out as a co-owned product. Either way, the product keeps shipping after we leave.

Three ways to work with PhoLabs.

Pick the format that matches your stage. We're transparent about price, scope, and outcomes from the first call.

What you usually ask first.

How do you price engagements?

Build Sprints are fixed-price and fixed-scope, quoted after the architecture phase. Partnerships are monthly retainers with outcomes negotiated quarterly. Co-founder engagements are equity-led with a base retainer. We share quotes within three business days of intake — no salesfunnel, no markups.

What technologies do you work with?

Defaults: TypeScript, React, Next.js, FastAPI, Python, Postgres, Redis, Cloudflare, Vercel, Fly.io. AI providers: Anthropic Claude, OpenAI, Google. Vector DBs: Qdrant, Pinecone. We pick the stack per problem, not by religion — and we don't onboard frameworks we can't operate.

Can you co-build with our internal team?

Yes. Partnership and co-founder engagements both include knowledge transfer and pair-programming with your engineers. We don't build black boxes — your team should be able to own the system after we leave.

How do you handle IP and ownership?

You own everything we build for you. Build Sprints transfer full IP at handoff. Partnerships and co-founder engagements operate under custom agreements that match the deal structure — and we sign your NDA, not ours.

What happens after the build?

Three options, decided at engagement start: we run it for you (ops retainer), we hand it off to your team (with documentation and 30-day support), or we spin it out as a co-owned product. The choice is yours.

Do you take equity instead of cash?

Yes — but only for co-founder engagements. We're selective. We need to believe the thesis, the market, and the founder. Send your deck and we'll respond within three business days, even if it's a no.

Where are you based and how do you work?

Paris, France. Async-first, deep-work culture. We work with teams across Europe and North America on overlapping hours. No status meetings, no Slack-as-deliverable — just code, demos, and clear writing.

What kind of teams do you work best with?

Founders and product leaders who know what they want, can decide quickly, and care about the craft. We're a poor fit for teams that need an agency to make decisions for them. We're an excellent fit for teams that have a thesis and need a studio to execute it.

Work with PhoLabs

Bring a thesis.
Leave with a product.

We take on a small number of partner engagements per year. If your thesis resembles one of the twenty-two above, send it over — we reply within one business day, even if it's a no.

Start a project → See the work