The agency for funded startups,
that need to move fast.
You've raised money, your roadmap is public and the clock is running. We are one senior team for web, design, brand and AI. We help you avoid the rewrites, the pile of suppliers and the scope creep that quietly eat your runway.
Reply within four business hours (typical) · Clear IP & Ownership Terms
Brands our teams have delivered for
PixelCrayons is a digital agency for funded startups: web development, design, brand and AI from one senior team. Our proposals are itemised. We keep the scope tight, and we tell you what not to build yet. You get regular progress your investors can see. IP and ownership terms are agreed before work starts.
See what we've built
and the results it brought.
Real projects for real clients, with results we can show.
- Commerce and web
- Shopify
- WooCommerce
- Magento
- WordPress
- Webflow
- Next.js
- Marketing
- Google Ads
- Meta Ads
- GA4
- Klaviyo
- Cloud
- AWS
- Microsoft Azure
- Google Cloud
- AI models
- OpenAI
- Anthropic
- Google Gemini
- Build and deploy
- Docker
- Kubernetes
- Terraform
- GitHub Actions
- CRM and automation
- HubSpot
- Salesforce
- Zapier
- n8n
Product names and marks are trademarks of their owners. Naming a technology means our teams build with it. It does not mean a partnership, certification or endorsement.
What uses up runway
between funding rounds.
Five problems come up in nearly every founder conversation we have. Each one affects how the work gets built, and who builds it.
Ship fast now without paying for it later
Startup speed usually comes with a cost you pay later: the version-two rewrite. The answer isn't slower delivery. It's senior engineers making boring, proven choices the first time. So the code your next hires inherit is an asset, not an apology. It's a web build your future CTO won't want to throw away.
One senior team instead of five vendors
A brand studio, a design freelancer, a development shop, a marketer and a chatbot contractor. Each may be excellent, but none is responsible for the whole. Founders end up joining all the pieces together themselves. One team covering brand, design and build takes that work off you. You get shared context, one task list, one standard, and one person to call when priorities change on a Tuesday night.
Scope discipline that respects the runway
Every feature costs weeks, and weeks are what you raised money for. Our proposals are itemised by deliverable and price. They are split into phases, so you can stop at any funded milestone with something complete. When a feature isn't worth what it costs, we say so before building it. That conversation is cheaper than the invoice.
Progress you can show the board
Investors don't read code logs. They look for momentum. So we make progress easy to see. You get working software at each stage and weekly reports in plain language. Dates are sized before they are promised. If something slips, you hear early, with options, not at the deadline.
An AI story that's more than a pitch-deck slide
Every pitch deck now has an AI slide, but fewer products have AI features people keep using. We build the ones that work in real life: assistants, workflow automation and search over your own data. We scope them tightly. That includes telling you when a well-written request to an existing AI service beats six months of custom model work.
Startup services,
matched to your problem.
Each service below is its own piece of work with its own page. This is where funded teams usually start.
How the work runs, from first code to first customer.
We publish how the work runs: scoping, building, demos and handover. Our pricing page shows the ways to work with us before anyone asks for your email.
Start with a small,
low-risk first step.
To be straight with you: our published case studies are commerce, SaaS and agency engagements. We haven't published a startup case yet, and we won't invent one. Judge our delivery record, then start with the smallest useful step.
See our published work
Three published, anonymised engagements, with the numbers left in: revenue growth, organic growth and delivery speed. The same senior team builds startup products.
See Our WorkGet the free website review
We measure one page of your website and show the three things to fix first. A person reviews the full report and sends it, typically within four business hours.
Get a Free Website ReviewScope the build
Tell us the roadmap and the runway. Once we have a complete brief, we confirm when your itemised, priced proposal arrives.
Get a ProposalWith limited runway, the order
of the work matters most.
The biggest factor in startup work isn't the size of the budget. It's that the budget runs out on a known date. So the plan has to show results before then.
Every plan is judged against the runway clock
A programme that pays off over eighteen months is the wrong plan if you have nine months of cash. That's true however sound it looks on paper. Here, early results you can check matter more than the best possible long-term result.
The positioning may still be moving
Before product-market fit, the product you are marketing can change under the marketing. Deep content built on a message that then shifts is expensive waste. So the early plan favours channels that adapt quickly over ones that pay off slowly.
The audience may not be searching yet
A new category has no existing search demand. That makes SEO a poor first channel, however well it is done. People have to want the thing before search can reach them. Saying so early saves a quarter of wasted effort.
Investor timelines are a real input
Board meetings and funding milestones set hard dates the plan has to meet. The numbers that matter for a raise are not always the ones that matter for the business that quarter. Being clear about which ones a programme aims at avoids an awkward conversation later.
Doing one thing well beats doing everything a little
A common mistake is spreading a small budget across every channel, so none has enough money to work. One channel funded properly beats four funded in part. Choosing which one is the most valuable decision in the engagement.
Your engagement, week to week,
in one workspace.
Prism is the client workspace where your requests, approvals, tasks and weekly reviews live.
Some engagements include Prism, our client workspace, and your proposal says whether yours does. Where it does, the work runs in one workspace you log into, whatever your sector: requests, approvals, tasks and the weekly review, with each decision recorded.
- 01
Requests and approvals
One queue, one owner, one due date.
- 02
Weekly review
Each decision recorded, with the expectation attached.
- 03
Actions checked against outcome
What we did and what happened, side by side.
Our commitments
Each one says where it applies and links to its full terms.
Response and start times
We typically respond within four business hours. Eligible engagements can typically start within two to three business days after scope, payment and required access are confirmed.
Business hours are Monday to Friday, 9:00 am to 6:00 pm IST, excluding published company holidays. Typical expectations, not guaranteed service levels.
Full termsClear IP & Ownership Terms
Your materials remain yours. Bespoke deliverable rights, licences and handover are agreed before work starts.
All engagements.
Full termsClear Delivery & Escalation Ownership
Know who coordinates your engagement, who owns the work and how to escalate an issue.
All engagements. Roles may be combined and vary with your engagement.
Full termsHow will we know what you are doing?
Before work starts we agree how often you get updates, what the reports cover and who sends them. You know who coordinates your engagement, who owns the work and how to escalate an issue. For hourly and retainer work, time is recorded in Workstatus, so you can see the time records behind your invoice.
Why pay you rather than a local agency?
We quote each engagement in a written proposal, and the initial consultation, standard proposal and straightforward scoping are free. The proposal states the deliverables, exclusions, fees and currency, payment milestones and any third-party costs, so you can compare it line by line with a local quote. You can buy one service or several, and keep the providers you already have.
Who owns the ad accounts, the data and the work?
Your materials, data and accounts remain yours, and we prefer to work in advertising and analytics accounts you own, with access delegated to our team. Agreed ownership rights in bespoke deliverables transfer under the engagement terms and applicable payment; third-party software and assets keep their licences. We do not withhold customer-owned data or accounts over a payment dispute.
What if we want to stop?
Cancellation, notice and any renewal terms are written into your proposal or statement of work before you accept it. If an engagement ends early, we hand over completed, paid-for work and list any unfinished work separately. For an eligible specialist trial, you can stop within the trial window and pay nothing for eligible trial hours.
How we handle claims, credentials and your data: group credentials, dated ratings, how case figures are signed off, client permissions and data handling.
Six startup requests
and how we answer each.
Every feature costs weeks, and weeks are what you raised money for. So part of our job is saying no early. These are the requests we answer differently, and why, before work starts.
| The request | Our call | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Start writing code on day one | A few days of scoping first | That is what makes the following months quick. |
| A programme that pays off over eighteen months, on nine months of cash | A plan that gives early results you can check | However sound the long plan is, it must show results before the runway ends. |
| SEO first, in a category nobody searches for yet | A channel that adapts quickly first | People must be searching before SEO can reach them. |
| A little budget on every channel | One channel funded properly | Spread thin, no channel is funded enough to work. |
| Equity instead of fees | No: cash against an itemised scope | Part-owners would be marking their own homework. |
| Optimise for the next raise | Agree up front which metrics the programme serves | The numbers that matter for a raise are not always the ones that matter for the business that quarter. |
Proposals are phased, so you can stop at any funded milestone with something whole. Product engineering is scoped and quoted as its own piece of work.
AI for startups
Start with an assessment to see where AI fits, then prove one use case with a fixed-price pilot before you scale it.
Frequently
asked.
Sometimes. What matters is budget certainty, not the name of your funding round. We work for cash and plan in phases. So the realistic minimum is a first funded milestone you can afford without betting the company. If that's not yet you, take the free website review anyway: it costs nothing, and the report is yours to act on with anyone.
No. Equity-for-services deals blur the very accountability you pay a startup growth agency for. As part-owners, we'd be marking our own homework. You pay cash against an itemised scope, and IP and ownership terms are agreed before work starts. If we're not worth the invoice, you stop. Simple, clean incentives last longer than clever share deals.
Once we have a complete brief, we confirm when your proposal arrives. Eligible work can typically start two to three business days after scope, payment and required access are confirmed. We won't write code before scoping just to look fast. Scoping is what makes the months after it quick.
As extra senior hands, not their replacement. You keep control of the architecture. The code lives in your repositories from the first commit, and our team joins your review process rather than working around it. Founders usually keep the decisions they care about and hand us the volume of work. Everything is documented, so your future in-house team inherits context, not chaos.
Your materials, data and accounts remain yours. Agreed ownership rights in bespoke deliverables transfer under the engagement terms and applicable payment; third-party software and assets keep their licences. We do not withhold customer-owned data or accounts over a payment dispute. Working files are handed over as we go rather than ransomed at the end.
One channel, funded properly and planned to give early results you can check before the runway ends. Before product-market fit, the plan favours channels that adapt quickly over ones that pay off slowly. If your category is new and nobody is searching for it yet, SEO is a poor first channel, and we'll say so.
Ship the roadmap
you raised on.
Tell us what you promised your investors and by when. Once we have a complete brief, we confirm the date you will receive your itemised proposal, and the plan is yours to keep either way.
Reply within four business hours (typical) · NDA standard · Clear IP & Ownership Terms
Rankings on this topic
- Best MVP Development Companies (November 2026) (PixelCrayons is listed, not ranked)
- Best SaaS Development Companies (November 2026)
- Top Mobile App Development Companies in India (November 2026) (PixelCrayons is listed, not ranked)
- Top Software Development Companies in India (November 2026) (PixelCrayons ranks No. 9)
- Best Mobile App Development Companies in the UK (November 2026)
- Best Mobile App Development Companies in Canada (November 2026)
- Best Mobile App Development Companies in the UAE (November 2026)
Scored on public evidence by the PixelCrayons Index. PixelCrayons is scored like every firm: ranked where it has a case study, listed where it has not.
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