Holmes

TLDR

Holmes is a Ghent-based autonomous QA platform that uses AI agents to learn how users move through a product and continuously generate end-to-end tests for those flows.

Overview

Holmes was founded in 2026 by Robin Praet, Robbrecht Delrue, and Sofie Buyse, three Belgian operators each with a prior exit. The team builds an autonomous software-testing platform aimed at engineering teams shipping AI-generated code at high velocity. Rather than asking developers to hand-write and maintain test suites, Holmes observes how a product is actually used, infers the end-to-end journeys that matter, and turns those into self-updating tests inside the CI/CD pipeline.

The platform deploys a set of specialised AI agents covering happy paths, edge cases, responsive layouts, accessibility, and error recovery. The founders position Holmes around a structural shift: traditional QA workflows cannot keep pace with AI-assisted development, so testing itself has to become autonomous. At launch the company was working with 30 design partners, with broader access rolling out in 2026.

The founder credentials anchor the pitch. Praet and Delrue previously co-founded Smartendr, a hospitality ordering platform that grew to 600+ venues and 400,000+ monthly users before being acquired by OrderBilly in September 2025. Delrue had earlier scaled go-to-market at Teamleader. Buyse was the first hire at Henchman, the Ghent legal AI tool acquired by LexisNexis for EUR 136.1M in June 2024.

In May 2026 Holmes announced a EUR 1.1M pre-Seed round led by Syndicate One, with participation from Roeland Delrue and Willem Delbare (co-founders of Aikido Security), Louis Jonckheere (co-founder of Showpad), serial entrepreneur Thomas Van Overbeke, and funds NewSchool.vc, RDY Capital, and 100IN. The advisory bench includes engineering leaders from Collibra, Luzmo, Upsellplus, and Lighthouse.

Key People

• Robin Praet - Co-founder
• Robbrecht Delrue - Co-founder
• Sofie Buyse - Co-founder

Funding History

• Pre-Seed: EUR 1.1M (May 2026), led by Syndicate One, with NewSchool.vc, RDY Capital, 100IN, and angels Roeland Delrue, Willem Delbare (Aikido Security), Louis Jonckheere (Showpad), Thomas Van Overbeke.

Sources

• https://www.eu-startups.com/2026/05/belgiums-holmes-launches-with-e1-1-million-pre-seed-to-catch-software-bugs-before-they-reach-users/
• https://tech.eu/2026/05/12/holmes-launches-with-eur11m-pre-seed-for-autonomous-software-testing/
• https://www.todaysstartupnews.com/funding/holmes-1-1-million-pre-seed-syndicate-one-ai-code-qa-belgium-2026
• https://manda.be/articles/orderbilly-acquires-smartendr-to-accelerate-european-hospitality-digitisation/
• https://useholmes.com/
• https://be.linkedin.com/company/holmes-qa