startups
Holmes launches with €1.1M pre-seed for autonomous software testing
TechEU
May 12, 2026 · 2 min listen
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Holmes launches with €1.1M pre-seed for autonomous software testing
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Ghent-based Holmes, a technology company focused on reinventing software quality assurance for the AI era, has launched with €1.1 million in pre-seed funding. The round was led by Syndicate One, with participation from Aikido founders Roeland Delrue and Willem Delbare, Showpad co-founder Louis Jonckheere, and serial entrepreneur Thomas Van Overbeke. Investment funds NewSchool.vc, RDY Capital, and 100IN also joined the round. The investor base reflects the broader Ghent technology ecosystem behind companies such as Aikido and Henchman. Founded by Robin Praet, Robbrecht Delrue, and Sofie Buyse, Holmes is building an autonomous quality assurance (QA) platform designed for software teams operating at AI development speed. As AI coding tools accelerate software production, quality assurance has increasingly become a bottleneck, with engineering and product teams still relying heavily on manually written and maintained tests to ensure products function correctly. Rather than depending on predefined scripts and manual test maintenance, Holmes learns how a product works and how users interact with it. Based on those workflows, the platform continuously generates and updates tests that verify critical user journeys as the product evolves. At Henchman, I experienced firsthand how QA often becomes work that everyone knows is essential, but nobody truly owns. Testing frequently ends up on the plate of developers and product managers alongside their existing responsibilities. Holmes was built to automate that process and allow teams to continue shipping products with greater confidence, said Sofie Buyse, Product Manager at Holmes. Robbrecht Delrue, co-founder of Holmes, noted that most software companies do not invest heavily in QA teams early on. However, as products and development teams scale, manual testing increasingly becomes a constraint on release speed and growth, a challenge Holmes aims to address. In addition to its founding team, Holmes works with a group of experienced technology leaders advising the company on product development, including Dieter Wachters, Haroen Vermylen, Jaap Vergote, and Ivo Minjauw. The funding will be used to further develop the Holmes platform, expand the product and engineering teams, and support the company’s rollout beyond its current group of design partners.
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