Summarize with AI
For a pre-seed AI startup that wants its first real website in custom code, Studio Maydit fits best, because it ships a small coded site in three to four weeks, hands the code to the founders, and can keep designing the product after the round. Ranked by fit, the ten studios worth reviewing are Studio Maydit, basement.studio, Feels Like, Feely Studio, SuperSkills, Digidop, Phantom, 8020, Refokus, and Pixelmatters. basement.studio and Feels Like lead the other nine, since custom code is the main platform for both and both name AI clients. Refokus and Pixelmatters fit a pre-seed team least, because both mostly serve large companies and show only partial AI proof. Know this up front: only basement.studio, Feels Like, and Phantom list custom code as their main platform. The other six build in Webflow or a mix of tools.
Picture two founders with a prototype, a waitlist, and a plan to raise in ten weeks. Their site is one page with a logo and an email box. One founder writes code for a living and says she can build the real site over two weekends.
She probably can. The code is not the hard part. The words are: what the product does in one line, who it is for, and why now. Those choices eat founder hours that belong to investor calls.
The readers are unusual too. Investors open the site from a cold email, on a phone, for under a minute. Design partners check whether a two-person company is safe to trust. They need five clear pages that load fast, not forty.
Custom code earns its place before seed when the founders would rather edit pages in their own code base than learn a builder, or when the pitch needs a small working sample of the model. Either way, the code should live in your own account from day one.
So we asked one question. Can the studio ship a small, fast, coded site on a founder's budget, then hand it back to founders who will keep rewriting it?
How we sorted custom code studios for a pre-seed AI team
We used each studio's own website and directory listings, read in October 2026. No studio paid for a place.
- Code as the main craft. Does the studio name custom code as its main platform? Webflow and mixed shops scored lower, and each entry says which camp it is in.
- AI products it has worked on. We looked for named AI clients and published AI work. A studio that has explained a young AI product before will need fewer rounds of notes from you.
- A floor price you can find. We recorded yes or no, never the figure. Pre-seed money comes from founders, angels, or one small check, so a known floor saves a wasted week.
- Team size next to a two-person client. We set headcount against the clients each studio names. A small studio is fine at this stage. The person on the sales call is often the person who builds.
- What the studio's own site proves. We loaded each one on a phone. Is it quick, and does it do anything a template could not?
Of the five, the last says the most. When a studio builds for itself, nobody else signs off, so its own site is the purest sample of its taste. If that site is slow or plain, yours will likely be too.
When a team size, founding year, or client list is not public, the table says Not published. Gaps stay gaps.
What goes wrong when a pre-seed AI startup hires a custom code studio
The site is built for the company you hope to be after the round. The studio plans pricing, customer stories, careers, and a big blog. A pre-seed team has none of those yet, so the pages ship with filler, and investors notice. Ask for the five pages you need this quarter, built so new ones are easy to add later.
The founders cannot change their own words. Positioning before seed moves every few weeks, often right after an investor call. If every hero edit goes through the studio, the homepage falls behind the deck within a month. Ask the studio to show, at handoff, how a founder edits a headline and ships it in one sitting from your own repository.
The budget goes on motion instead of meaning. Custom code tempts a studio to spend half the scope on a 3D hero. Then an investor opens the link on a train, waits four seconds for the scene to load, and still cannot say what the product does. Ask how the first screen reads with scripts off and how fast it loads on a mid-range phone.
1. Studio Maydit: A Top-Rated Design Agency for AI Founders
A pre-seed site usually has one real deadline: the week the founders start sending the deck. Studio Maydit plans to that date with a fixed scope of three to four weeks. It is a web and product design studio for AI founders in the US, UK, and Europe, and it builds in Framer, Webflow, and custom code. For engineer founders who want to own every line, it writes custom code and leaves the repository in their hands. After the raise, the same team can continue into product design.
If you are building for developers, open the Dualite case study first. Its marketing pages and its product screens came from one team, and design work supporting a repositioned ICP helped Dualite grow to 100,000+ users in seven months. Wave, PixelFlow, and Mi-VAD sit on the recent client list too, next to 15 other AI and SaaS teams.
Each fixed scope ends with a diagnosis of what is leaking in the product, so a pre-seed team learns where early users stall before investors ask. Once the round closes and the team ships more often, a monthly retainer covers new pages, campaigns, and product design, with no long lock-in.
| Check | Finding |
|---|---|
| Based in | Remote, serving US / UK / EU |
| Platform depth | Framer, Webflow, and custom code |
| AI-sector proof | Yes. AI-native clients, published outcome on Dualite |
| Pricing | Fixed scope or monthly retainer, quoted per project |
| Team shape | Founder-led, small senior team |
| Best fit | Pre-seed AI founders who need a small coded site live before they start raising |
Send us the deck you plan to raise with, and we will tell you which five pages your site needs first. Book a 30-minute call.
2. basement.studio
basement.studio has written custom code since 2018, with teams in Mar del Plata, Argentina and Los Angeles. Its named clients include Vercel, Cursor, ElevenLabs, Harvey AI, and Scale AI. These are tools your future investors use daily, so the studio knows the bar your site will be held to. It also publishes a minimum, so you can check fit before a call.
Check that minimum against your budget early. With 11 to 50 people and clients this well known, the next open slot may come after the date you planned to start raising.
| Check | Finding |
|---|---|
| Based in | Mar del Plata, Argentina and Los Angeles, USA |
| Founded | 2018 |
| Team size | 11-50 |
| Primary platform | Custom code |
| AI-sector proof | Yes. Published AI client work |
| Named clients | Vercel, Cursor, ElevenLabs, Harvey AI, Scale AI |
| Pricing | Published minimum |
| Best fit | Technical pre-seed founders who want a coded site that stands next to well-known AI tools |
3. Feels Like
Feels Like is a Los Angeles studio founded in 2023, and custom code is its main platform. It names Google, Nike, LVMH, and Suno AI as clients. Suno AI is a young AI music company, so the studio has made a new kind of AI product feel simple to try, which is a pre-seed homepage's whole job.
It publishes neither its team size nor a price, so you only learn whether a pre-seed budget works once you are on a call. Most of its named clients are large consumer brands, so ask to see a small, fast site rather than a campaign.
| Check | Finding |
|---|---|
| Based in | Los Angeles, USA |
| Founded | 2023 |
| Team size | Not published |
| Primary platform | Custom code |
| AI-sector proof | Yes. Published AI client work |
| Named clients | Google, Nike, LVMH, Suno AI |
| Pricing | Not published |
| Best fit | Pre-seed AI teams with a consumer product that has to feel easy in the first few seconds |
4. Feely Studio
Feely Studio is a distributed European team of one to ten people in the budget tier, and it publishes a minimum. It has published AI client work, with named clients Noxus, Mutiny, Luasai, and Basic Capital. It suits a founder who needs a name, a look, and a first site from one small team.
Its main platform is mixed, not custom code, so the site may end up in a builder rather than your repository. It publishes no founding year, and a team this small has little room for a second project at once, so ask about start dates early.
| Check | Finding |
|---|---|
| Based in | Distributed, Europe |
| Founded | Not published |
| Team size | 1-10 |
| Primary platform | Mixed |
| AI-sector proof | Yes. Published AI client work |
| Named clients | Noxus, Mutiny, Luasai, Basic Capital |
| Pricing | Published minimum |
| Best fit | Pre-seed AI founders who need brand and a first site together on a small budget |
5. SuperSkills
SuperSkills is a team of one to ten in Walnut Creek, USA, and it sits in the budget tier. It has published AI client work, and its one named client is The Cut. Along with Feely Studio, it is one of two budget studios here with AI work, which matters to founders paying out of savings or a small angel check.
It is not a custom code shop either. Its platform is mixed, it names a single client, and it publishes no founding year or price, so you have less to judge from than with any other studio in the top five.
| Check | Finding |
|---|---|
| Based in | Walnut Creek, USA |
| Founded | Not published |
| Team size | 1-10 |
| Primary platform | Mixed |
| AI-sector proof | Yes. Published AI client work |
| Named clients | The Cut |
| Pricing | Not published |
| Best fit | Pre-seed founders on a tight budget who can accept a builder site for now |
6. Digidop
Digidop is a Paris studio founded in 2021, with one to ten people and a published minimum. TSE Energy, Ramify, and StreamNative are named clients. StreamNative sells to engineers, the buyer many AI founders pitch first, and a European team gets a small studio in a nearby time zone.
It builds in Webflow, not custom code, and its AI proof is partial. If the founders want the site inside their own code base, this is the wrong shape of studio.
| Check | Finding |
|---|---|
| Based in | Paris, France |
| Founded | 2021 |
| Team size | 1-10 |
| Primary platform | Webflow |
| AI-sector proof | Partial. Software clients, no AI case study |
| Named clients | TSE Energy, Ramify, StreamNative |
| Pricing | Published minimum |
| Best fit | European pre-seed teams selling to engineers who are happy to run the site on Webflow |
7. Phantom
Phantom has built in custom code since 2013, from London and Auckland, with 51 to 200 people. It has published AI client work, and its named clients include Diageo, SAP, the Financial Times, and Zendesk. If your pre-seed pitch rests on an interactive sample of what the model can do, this team has the engineering depth to build it.
It is the wrong size for most pre-seed budgets. It does not publish a price, its clients are large companies, and a two-person startup would be one of its smallest accounts.
| Check | Finding |
|---|---|
| Based in | London, UK and Auckland, NZ |
| Founded | 2013 |
| Team size | 51-200 |
| Primary platform | Custom code |
| AI-sector proof | Yes. Published AI client work |
| Named clients | Diageo, SAP, Financial Times, Zendesk |
| Pricing | Not published |
| Best fit | Well-funded pre-seed teams whose pitch needs a rich interactive demo in the browser |
8. 8020
8020 has worked from San Francisco and New York since 2014. Its named clients are Wave, Superlist, Pilot.com, Vanta, and Circle, all software companies. Pilot.com and Vanta sell to young startups, so the studio has written for founders as buyers.
It builds in Webflow, not custom code. AI proof is partial, and neither its team size nor its price is published.
| Check | Finding |
|---|---|
| Based in | San Francisco and New York, USA |
| Founded | 2014 |
| Team size | Not published |
| Primary platform | Webflow |
| AI-sector proof | Partial. Software clients, no AI case study |
| Named clients | Wave, Superlist, Pilot.com, Vanta, Circle |
| Pricing | Not published |
| Best fit | Pre-seed AI tools that sell to other startups and do not need code on the site |
9. Refokus
Refokus is a remote team based in Germany, founded in 2021, with 11 to 50 people. Its named clients include Mural, BASF, Spotify, Yahoo, and BCG. Mural is a tool many startup teams use daily.
It sits in the premium tier, builds in Webflow rather than custom code, and shows only partial AI proof. With mostly large clients and no published price, it suits a company after its round more than before it.
| Check | Finding |
|---|---|
| Based in | Germany, remote |
| Founded | 2021 |
| Team size | 11-50 |
| Primary platform | Webflow |
| AI-sector proof | Partial. Large tech clients, no AI case study |
| Named clients | Mural, BASF, Spotify, Yahoo, BCG |
| Pricing | Not published |
| Best fit | AI teams that have closed a round and want a polished Webflow site |
10. Pixelmatters
Pixelmatters is a Porto studio founded in 2013, with 51 to 200 people and a published minimum. Rubrik, Quantic, and UJET are named clients, and UJET sells cloud software to customer support teams. A public floor tells you fast whether a call is worth booking.
It ranks last on fit, not quality. Its platform is mixed rather than custom code, AI proof is partial, and its size suits later stages.
| Check | Finding |
|---|---|
| Based in | Porto, Portugal |
| Founded | 2013 |
| Team size | 51-200 |
| Primary platform | Mixed |
| AI-sector proof | Partial. Software clients, no AI case study |
| Named clients | Rubrik, Quantic, UJET |
| Pricing | Published minimum |
| Best fit | AI companies past seed that need a larger team for site and product |
How to choose between them
Sort by what the money has to buy before the round.
An engineer founder wants the site in the product's code base. basement.studio, Feels Like, or Studio Maydit.
The pitch needs a small working sample of the model. Phantom if the budget allows, or Studio Maydit for a lighter sample inside a fast site.
Cash is the hard limit and the site is mostly words. Skip custom code until after the raise. SuperSkills, or Digidop for a European team.
You need a name and a look, not just pages. Feely Studio, keeping in mind that it builds in mixed tools, not custom code.
One test before you sign. Ask the studio to change the hero line live on the call, the way a founder would after handoff. If only the studio can do it, keep looking.
