Artificial intelligence is dramatically accelerating the speed at which software is built, but one major challenge continues slowing teams down: ensuring that applications actually work as intended. As developers increasingly rely on AI coding tools to ship products faster, quality assurance has emerged as one of the biggest bottlenecks in modern software development. Belgian startup Holmes believes the future of testing must also become autonomous, and investors are backing that vision with fresh funding.
The Ghent based company has officially launched with €1.1 million in pre seed funding aimed at building a new generation of AI powered quality assurance tools. The round was led by Syndicate One and included participation from prominent figures in Belgium’s technology ecosystem, including Roeland Delrue, Willem Delbare, Louis Jonckheere, and entrepreneur Thomas Van Overbeke.
Investment firms NewSchool.vc, RDY Capital, and 100IN also joined the round, reflecting strong support from the wider Ghent startup ecosystem behind companies such as Aikido and Henchman.
Automating Quality Assurance
Holmes was founded by Robin Praet, Robbrecht Delrue, and Sofie Buyse. The company is developing an autonomous quality assurance platform designed specifically for software teams building products at AI accelerated speed.
Traditional software testing often depends on manually written scripts that require continuous maintenance as applications evolve. Engineering and product teams typically spend significant time updating tests, identifying broken workflows, and verifying that new product changes do not disrupt existing functionality.
Holmes is taking a different approach. Instead of relying on static scripts, the platform learns how a product behaves and analyses how users interact with it. Based on those workflows, the system automatically generates and updates tests in real time, ensuring that critical user journeys continue functioning properly as the product changes.
The company believes this autonomous approach can remove much of the repetitive and time consuming work associated with modern software quality assurance.
Solving a Growing Industry Bottleneck
According to Sofie Buyse, quality assurance is often treated as an essential responsibility that no one fully owns within growing software companies. She explained that testing work frequently falls onto developers and product managers who are already balancing multiple priorities.
Buyse drew from her experience at Henchman, where she saw firsthand how QA challenges could slow down teams and create operational friction. Holmes was built to automate that process while allowing companies to continue shipping products with greater speed and confidence.
Co founder Robbrecht Delrue added that many startups and software companies do not invest heavily in dedicated QA teams during their early stages. However, as products scale and development becomes more complex, manual testing increasingly limits release velocity and product growth.
Holmes aims to address that problem by providing software teams with a scalable quality assurance layer that evolves alongside their products.
Supported by Experienced Tech Leaders
Beyond its founding team, Holmes is also working closely with a network of experienced technology advisors helping shape product development and strategy. Advisors include Dieter Wachters, Haroen Vermylen, Jaap Vergote, and Ivo Minjauw.
The newly raised funding will be used to accelerate development of the Holmes platform, expand the company’s engineering and product teams, and support rollout beyond its current group of design partners.
As AI tools continue transforming software development workflows worldwide, Holmes is positioning itself as part of a new generation of startups focused on solving the operational challenges created by faster, AI driven product creation.