The idea-to-exit simulator
Every decision ends with one concrete lesson to take back to your own venture story
They’re genuinely useful… right up until a real decision is in front of you. You can read every startup book ever written and still freeze at your first term sheet negotiation.
Reading shows you the map, but it doesn’t teach you how to drive
In Lumni Play, you don’t just read about it, you are put in the driver’s seat:
Lumni Play is a startup strategy simulator for early-stage tech founders.
You have an idea, a vision, maybe a co-founder, and the ambition to build something big.
But what you don’t have yet is the experience of raising money, negotiating terms, or watching your ownership change hands.
If that’s you, this is a safe place to simulate that experience.
Make your mistakes here, not in real life.
Startup funding rounds are the stages a company raises investment through: pre-seed, seed, Series A and beyond. Each funding round needs to prove a different thing to investors and requires a different strategy. The simulator walks you through the full sequence, so if you've been searching for startup funding rounds explained or startup funding series explained, this is the interactive version: you make the decisions and watch your cap table change.
There's no single right path: angel investors, seed funds, SEIS/EIS schemes in the UK all work differently and each has trade-offs. The simulator lets you test how to get VC investment for your startup by playing through realistic scenarios: choosing instruments, negotiating term sheets, and seeing the equity consequences of each route.
Yes. The scenarios reflect UK fundraising reality, including angel investors, UK-specific norms like SEIS/EIS relief, and typical early-stage terms. You'll face the same choices founders face when raising from UK angels.
A cap table shows who owns what share of a company. Dilution is when, after a funding round, new shares are issued, making your initial ownership shrink. The simulator shows your cap table changing with every fundraising decision, so you can see the dilution happening live.
Earlier than you think. Decisions made at pre-seed, such as which instrument you raise on, how much equity you give away, which investors you take on, etc, all shape what an exit looks like and how much of it you will keep. The simulator runs your choices all the way through to exit, so you see the endgame consequences of early decisions.
No. Lumni Play is a free simulator, not a platform for raising money. You practise the decisions here: instrument choice, dilution, term sheets, exits, before you make them for real.
Lumni Play is a product of Lumni Works, the UK-based innovation & venture strategy practice run by Daniela Navaes. We work with early-stage tech founders on early-stage validation, venture strategy, investment readiness, and exit preparation. The simulator is built on the same thinking: every scenario reflects decisions real founders face when raising in the UK.