Announcing HopStart, cohort #1: meet the 3 startups building with bunny.net
Marek Nalikowski
January 30, 2026
Last quarter we launched HopStart, our startup program to help founders worry less about infrastructure and focus more on their products, so they can build their dreams.
HopStart runs in quarterly cohorts. For each round, we select three winners and support them with up to $50,000 USD in credits for use on bunny.net, alongside regular check-ins and feedback, as well as early access to upcoming features and products.
We’ve been overwhelmed by the response to the program and received many strong applications. That said, narrowing it down to just three startups for this cohort wasn’t easy. We looked at how each product could make a real difference for its users or industry, and at whether our platform could meaningfully support their growth.
Without further ado, meet HopStart cohort #1.
1st place: Phare
Founder: Nicolas Beauvais
Year founded: 2022
URL: https://phare.io/
Credits received: $50,000 for one year
In the founder’s words: “Phare currently serves over 500 companies with uptime monitoring, incident management, and custom status pages, with a strong focus on EU-based providers, privacy, and user experience.”
2nd place: Split Hero
Founder: Adam Lacey
Year founded: 2019
Credits received: $25,000 for one year
In the founder’s words: “We want to be the number one privacy-first, edge-native experimentation platform for agencies and product teams. It turns ‘should we test?’ into a default ‘yes’ by removing friction (no heavy scripts, no cookies, no PII), delivering variant decisions in under 30 ms, and keeping return visitors consistent via anonymous, deterministic IDs. A real-time event pipeline and warehouse-grade analytics (aggregated, de-identified) turn noise into decisions, not dashboards.”
3rd place: uDocz
Founder: Carlos Effio
Year founded: 2020
Credits received: $10,000 for one year
In the founder’s words: “uDocz is the AI operating system for higher education, improving student retention, staff productivity, and overall efficiency. Currently, we serve 4 million students every month. Our AI-powered learning platform helps universities provide better academic support to their students and faculty. We have managed to improve students' course performance (a 30% boost in grades) and reduce dropout rates, enhance career readiness, and graduate profile. In addition, we have a direct-to-consumer model, where we currently serve millions of students every month with supplementary classroom help (class materials and AI tools).”
Apply for the next HopStart cohort
Applications for cohort #2 are already open. To be considered for the next round, all you need to do is fill in this short form before February 28.
We’re looking for bold ideas with meaningful impact and a clear fit for bunny.net’s support. If you applied before but weren’t selected, you’re encouraged to apply again — a different cohort can mean a better fit.
Three teams will be selected for the second cohort and announced no later than April 2026.
We’re looking forward to seeing what you’re building!