Foundations, the startup community with hubs in Seattle and San Francisco, launched a service Tuesday that lets businesses contract with its members — many of them technical founders building companies of their own — to plan, develop and implement AI systems and applications.

The service, called Foundations Design and Engineering, is designed in part to give those founders a new way to pay their bills as early-stage investment gets harder to raise. It also reflects how AI is changing tech, making software easier to build and leading some startups to act more like services firms, customizing their work for individual customers.

“I think the world of traditional consulting and startups is just absolutely going to merge,” said Aviel Ginzburg, the Seattle venture capitalist who co-founded Foundations in 2024.

Except, in the case of Foundations Design and Engineering, the consulting won’t have the trappings of the traditional kind, he said. There is no staff of consultants and no billing by the hour. Work is priced by the project.

The pitch on the website: “Not consultants studying AI. Builders using it every day.”

The idea, he said, is to create something that “acts more like a router.” A request from a business might go to a member company already building a product in that area, a founder who knows the customer’s industry, or an early-stage founder looking for paid work.

Ginzburg said the work could have another benefit, giving founders a close look at the problems businesses are trying to solve, which can help them decide what to build.

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