Do you charge founders to be scouted?

No. Scouting and technical validation cost founders nothing. We work with the buying and operator side of our network, and we only make an introduction when the product held up in our lab.

How long does the process take?

A first response to a submission usually takes under two weeks. Hands-on validation runs two to six weeks depending on the deployment. Introductions follow within weeks of a positive result, not quarters.

What stage do you work with?

Mostly pre-seed to Series A, including bootstrapped teams with revenue. What matters more than stage is that something real is running and a design partner can vouch for it.

What happens if we don't pass validation?

We send the findings and tell you what we would need to see to revisit it. Plenty of teams come back six or twelve months later and get a different answer.

Which categories are in scope?

Information security, AI and cloud, and virtualization and sovereign infrastructure, with a bias toward EMEA, the Nordics and MEA, where regulation and sovereignty shape the decision.

How we work

Scout, validate, connect, in that order

Fullstock International runs one method, openly. We find early-stage security and AI teams before the market does, deploy what they've built until something breaks, and only then make the introductions that turn into pilots.

01 · Scout

We look where the market isn't

We spend most of our week with founders who have no analyst coverage and no shortlist presence, usually one to three years old, working with a handful of design partners.

Typical timeframe

Ongoing

What this involves

Standing relationships with founder networks, research groups, accelerators and operator communities across EMEA, the Nordics and MEA.
Category mapping: we track where incumbents have quietly stopped solving a problem, then go looking for the teams that restarted.
Inbound intake: every company that submits through this site is read by a person, not a filter.
A written thesis for each category we are actively scouting, so a founder knows why we called.

What you get

A live pipeline of early-stage security, AI and infrastructure teams, with a reason on record for why each one is interesting.

02 · Validate

We deploy it before we describe it

Nothing gets an introduction on the strength of a deck. Our engineers install the product, run it against realistic scenarios, and write down where it holds and where it doesn't.

Typical timeframe

2–6 weeks

What this involves

Hands-on deployment in our lab, in the architecture a real buyer would use, not a vendor sandbox.
Failure-first testing: scale, migration, degraded networks, noisy data, and the edge cases the demo avoids.
Security and operational review: tenancy model, data handling, sovereignty posture, upgrade and rollback paths.
Commercial reality check: pricing shape, support model, and whether the team can carry a first enterprise pilot.
A written validation summary shared with the founder, including the parts they won't enjoy reading.

What you get

A defensible yes or no. If it doesn't hold up, we say so and no introduction happens; founders still get the findings.

03 · Connect

We make the introduction that matters

We know who is buying, who is building and who is funding in these markets. The value is matching a validated product to a live problem and briefing both sides properly.

Typical timeframe

Weeks, not quarters

What this involves

Targeted matching against problems we know are live on a roadmap, never a blast to a list.
Both-sides briefing: the buyer gets our validation findings, the founder gets the context and the constraints.
Pilot shaping: scope, success criteria, security review support and the paperwork that usually stalls first deployments.
Follow-through after the introduction, including reference stories and positioning once the pilot lands.

What you get

Pilots and partnerships that start from a real problem, with both sides walking in informed.

Two ways into the process

For founders

Show us the product, not the pitch

A technical review by engineers who will actually run your software.
Honest findings in writing, whether or not we take you forward.
Introductions to buying teams with the problem already live.
Help shaping first pilots, positioning and reference stories.

Submit a startup

For enterprises and operators

See what's next before it reaches a shortlist

A short list of validated teams relevant to a problem you already have.
Our lab findings up front, so evaluation starts from evidence.
Coverage across security, AI and infrastructure in regulated markets.
Support through pilot scoping and internal security review.

Partner with us

Track record

Judged by what happened next

We only count a discovery as a success when it ends in a deployment. These are the numbers behind our scouting and the words of the founders and buyers on both sides of the introduction.

180+

Early-stage teams reviewed

Security, AI and infrastructure founders met across EMEA, the Nordics and MEA.

Companies validated in our lab

Deployed, stressed and documented hands-on before any introduction was made.

60+

Introductions into buying teams

Enterprises, service providers and operators with the problem live on their roadmap.

Pilots now in production

Scouted companies running paid deployments with customers we introduced.

“They tested our product harder than our first three customers did, then only introduced us once it held up. Two of those conversations became pilots.”
Founder, agentless detection startup
Co-founder & CTO · Security · Nordics
“We stopped taking cold vendor calls. Fullstock brings us two or three teams a quarter that are already relevant to what we're solving.”
Head of Security Architecture
Enterprise buyer · Financial services · EMEA
“Their engineers ran the migration scenarios we didn't have time to run. That validation is why we moved forward with a sovereign platform this year.”
Director of Infrastructure
Service provider · Sovereign cloud · MEA

Questions we get asked first

Do you charge founders to be scouted?: No. Scouting and technical validation cost founders nothing. We work with the buying and operator side of our network, and we only make an introduction when the product held up in our lab.
How long does the process take?: A first response to a submission usually takes under two weeks. Hands-on validation runs two to six weeks depending on the deployment. Introductions follow within weeks of a positive result, not quarters.
What stage do you work with?: Mostly pre-seed to Series A, including bootstrapped teams with revenue. What matters more than stage is that something real is running and a design partner can vouch for it.
What happens if we don't pass validation?: We send the findings and tell you what we would need to see to revisit it. Plenty of teams come back six or twelve months later and get a different answer.
Which categories are in scope?: Information security, AI and cloud, and virtualization and sovereign infrastructure, with a bias toward EMEA, the Nordics and MEA, where regulation and sovereignty shape the decision.

Partnerships

Ready for the next step?

Founders: send us the product and we'll start the review. Enterprises and operators: tell us the problem and we'll bring you the validated teams working on it.

Partner with us Submit a startup or email hello@fullstockinternational.com