Monzo founder’s new AI startup wants to make software developers extinct

Last month, Monzo co-founder Jonas Templestein began fundraising for a new startup, leveraging AI for low/no-code web development. The startup, Nustom, has been busy recruiting, and announced itself to the world.

The startup’s website says that, within ten years “the majority of software will be made by people with no technical background, collaborating with an AI.” Nustom offers end-to-end SaaS for “those who want software made, but don’t have experience building or running it.”

The view that software development is a skill losing value is nothing new. UBS’ chief economist called coding a ‘stranded asset’ and NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang has actively advised parents not to teach their kids to code.

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AI hasn’t made engineers extinct at Nustom just yet, however. Its website says it will “have human engineers guarantee the quality of the software until our AI agents are reliable enough to do it without assistance.”

Nustom is co-founded by Oliver Beattie, formerly Monzo’s VP of architecture. He left the bank after six years in 2021 and has since had roles at fintechs like Imprint and Pleo. 

Its third executive is COO Maria Campbell. She was head of people at Monzo, and head of people at GoCardless before it, but was most recently COO at banking-as-a-service fintech Griffin. She announced her departure last month on social media, under which Templestein commented, “want to come work with Oliver Beattie and me? 🤞🤞🤞🤞”. Evidently, it worked.

There are also two engineers in the founding team. Eugenio Marchiori is a PhD computer scientist who spent the last 12 years at Google; he’s the only non-Monzo alumnus at the company. The other engineer, Fred Jonsson, was a staff engineer at the fintech.

Nustom isn’t hiring for any specific roles, but is open to emails from anyone who would like to join the team. Previously working at Monzo would seemingly stand you in good stead.

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