The Sitio Labs Studio Model: Venture Build, CTO Partnership, AI Sprint Explained
Three engagement models, one studio. Whether you need a company built from zero, an embedded CTO, or a focused AI sprint, here is exactly how each works.
Why one model never fits every founder
Founders arrive at Sitio Labs at very different stages: some have only a thesis, others have revenue but no technical leadership, and others have a working product that needs an AI capability added in weeks. A single fixed engagement, the trap most Indian startup studios fall into, would serve none of them well. So we run three distinct models from our Mumbai studio: Venture Build, CTO Partnership, and AI Sprint, each with its own commercial structure and timeline. The goal is to meet the company where it actually is, not where a rigid studio playbook assumes it should be.
Venture Build: from thesis to incorporated company with shared equity
Venture Build is our deepest engagement, where Sitio Labs co-founds a company from zero, validating the market, building the AI-native product, hiring the founding team, and going to market alongside a domain founder. This is a six-to-twelve-month commitment in which we take meaningful equity rather than a cash fee, aligning our outcome entirely with the venture's. It suits operators who have deep industry insight, say, a former NBFC credit head or a logistics veteran, but lack the technical and product machinery to build an AI company. We typically run two to three Venture Builds at a time so each gets genuine studio firepower.
CTO Partnership: embedded technical leadership without the equity dilution of a co-founder
CTO Partnership is our "CTO-as-a-service" model for funded startups that have product-market signal but no senior technical leader to architect the AI stack, manage the engineering hires, and drive the roadmap. Rather than spending six months and a large equity slice recruiting a CTO who may not fit, founders get an embedded Sitio Labs technical partner on a retainer plus modest equity. This works especially well for seed-stage Indian companies in fintech and healthtech where the founder is a strong business operator but the AI architecture decisions are existential. The engagement is designed to taper as we help hire and mentor the permanent in-house CTO.
AI Sprint: a focused four-to-six-week build to ship one capability
AI Sprint is our fastest, most contained engagement, a fixed-scope, fixed-fee sprint of four to six weeks to design and ship a single AI capability into an existing product. A Bengaluru SaaS company might use a Sprint to add a vernacular voice agent; a Chennai insurer might use one to automate claims triage. Unlike open-ended consulting, every Sprint ends with production code, an evaluation harness, and a handover so the in-house team can maintain it. It is the right entry point for companies that want to test working with Sitio Labs before a deeper Venture Build or CTO Partnership.
How to choose the right engagement
The decision comes down to three questions: do you have a company yet, do you have technical leadership, and how broad is the work. If you have only a thesis and want a co-founder, choose Venture Build; if you have a funded company but no CTO, choose CTO Partnership; if you have a product and one urgent AI feature, choose AI Sprint. Many founders begin with an AI Sprint and graduate to a longer engagement once trust is established. Whichever model fits, the constant is that we build AI-native companies for the Indian market with real production accountability, not slideware.