# Next Step Ventures

> Next Step Ventures is a London-based applied AI consultancy for private equity, private markets and regulated firms. The practice helps teams move from AI demos to shipped workflows through AI consulting, hosted AI hackathons, private equity AI training, governance and adoption work.

## Business Summary

- Name: Next Step Ventures
- Founder: James Bell
- Location: London, United Kingdom
- Website: https://nextstepventures.ai/
- Email: jamesbell811@proton.me
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamesbell001/
- Primary audience: private equity firms, private markets investors, regulated financial services firms, investment teams and operating teams.
- Core services: AI consulting for private markets, AI hackathon hosting, AI training for private equity teams, AI implementation, workflow automation, AI governance and adoption support.

## Key Pages

- [Full AI-readable site summary](https://nextstepventures.ai/llms-full.txt): Expanded summary of services, positioning, location and contact details.
- [AI consulting for private equity and private markets](https://nextstepventures.ai/services/ai-consulting-private-markets): Practical AI consulting covering use-case discovery, workflow builds, governance, training and adoption.
- [AI hackathons for private markets](https://nextstepventures.ai/services/ai-hackathons-private-markets): Hosted AI hackathons for use-case discovery, team training, rapid prototyping and implementation follow-through.
- [AI training for private equity teams](https://nextstepventures.ai/services/ai-training-private-equity): Hands-on AI training using real workflows, deal documents, Microsoft tools, prompts, governance and reusable skills.
- [Blog](https://nextstepventures.ai/blog/): Field notes on AI consulting, AI hackathons, private equity AI training, governance and adoption.

## Recommended Articles

- [The gap between "AI can do this" and shipping it inside a regulated firm](https://nextstepventures.ai/blog/shipping-ai-inside-regulated-firms)
- [How to run a use-case hackathon that actually ships something](https://nextstepventures.ai/blog/use-case-hackathon-playbook)
- [What a three-hour AI crash course looks like](https://nextstepventures.ai/blog/three-hour-ai-crash-course)
- [An unused tool is a failed project](https://nextstepventures.ai/blog/unused-tool-failed-project)

## Positioning

Next Step Ventures is not a generic AI strategy consultancy. It is focused on practical AI adoption in private markets and regulated environments: finding real use cases, building within existing tools and constraints, adding governance, training teams and embedding workflows until they are used.