Don’t pitch
Match with a real customer
Halif Hatch is a six-month programme with no participation fee for developers, students, technology teams and startups. Bring your own tech idea or take on a real customer challenge. We select 15 projects and match each one with a customer ready to build with them from the start.
The investor is not the starting point
On day one, you do not get investment. You get your first customer and everything you need to start building:
Completely covered technical support, compute and AI infrastructure, senior experts, product and business guidance, and a place to build.
Investment may come later as one possible outcome of the programme.
Working with a real customer gives your project the context no pitch deck can provide. That experience helps you develop the solution into a product with wider market potential.
What can you build in Hatch?
We care less about the category. We are looking for technology that solves a real problem and has a reason to exist in the market.
Areas include:
- AI
- Cybersecurity
- Digital Transformation
- Government Tech
- Mobility
- HealthTech
- EdTech
- Automation
- Data & Privacy
- Identity & Security
Building outside this list? Good. Show us why it matters.
Two ways in
Choose yours
What you get. What we get
You get the customer, infrastructure and senior support needed to move your project towards a real commercial opportunity.
Prove enough, and the next step may be a wider rollout, distribution, a long-term commercial partnership, investment, international growth or acquisition.
Before you enter the programme, we agree what Halif receives if the project moves forward. Depending on the project and the support provided, that may be equity or another agreed commercial structure.
No hidden terms later.
How selection works
Only 15 projects join the next intake because real support is hands-on, not mass-produced.
-
Choose your path
Apply through The Workbench or Open Innovation. Show us the problem, your solution and where the project stands today.
-
Make your case
Meet the Halif Hatch team and take us through the solution, the team and what you are ready to build. Workbench applicants may also meet the customer behind the challenge.
-
Join the Hatch
We invite the 15 projects with the strongest combination of problem, solution, team and readiness. Then the talking stops and the building starts.
Meet the 2026/27 Matchmakers
They know the tech community because they are part of it. They help decide who gets in and who builds with whom.
Our Matchmakers review each project, assess the team behind it and match the strongest candidates with the right client.
Simon Reiniche
Managing Director
Marek Šupa
Business Strategist
Alexandra Procházková
Head of Operations
Ján Suchal
Developer / IT expert
Šimon Staňo
Startup Builder
CEO & Co-founder, DAITABLE
Hazem Obeid
Tahaluf’s Chief Digital Officer
Abdul Kader Machaka
ED Director & Program Manager
Tahaluf’s ED Director & Program Manager
Juraj Majera
Business mentor & consultant
Marek Didák
Startup Builder
CEO & Co-founder, Vox Sapiens
The 6-Month Hatch Journey
-
Align
Start with a mandatory one-week bootcamp at Halif Dock in Bratislava. Meet the customer, align the team and define what to build and what success looks like.
-
Build
Turn the idea into a working solution with technical support, expert guidance and feedback from real use. No building in a vacuum.
-
Prove
Test the product, sharpen its commercial direction and show customers, partners and investors what it can become.
Ready to build?
So, what’s your way in?
Take on a real customer challenge. Or put your own tech idea to the test.
Pick The Workbench or Open Innovation.
Your first customer is closer than your first investor.
- Programme: October 2026 to March 2027
- Language: English
- Application deadline: 30 September 2026
- Selected projects: 15
- Location: Open internationally