01Learn
Work through free Foundations until you understand a concept, like a DCF or an LBO, deep enough to spot when a number is wrong.
You leave with: judgment you can trust, not memorised definitions.
Carries into Build
For finance students on an AI-changed desk
Forge your finance edge.
Become the finance hire who directs AI instead of competing with it.
On today's desk, AI builds the model. Your value is knowing what to ask it, catching its mistakes, and defending the result. That is the skill firms still pay for, now that routine model-building is being automated.
AlphaForge builds that skill in two layers. First, the finance fundamentals, deep enough to judge whether a number is right. Second, a kit of Skills (ready-made prompts and files, each aimed at one job like a DCF or an LBO) that do the mechanical work for you. You leave with models you built and can defend, and the tools to build the next one in a fraction of the time.
Built by and for finance students from Tilburg, Maastricht, and Rotterdam.
How it works
Learn. Build. Harden. Agentic.
Four passes over the same work. Each one takes what the last produced and makes it sharper, until you have a model you can defend and a Skill that builds the next one faster. Start at any pass; together they compound.
01
02Build
Turn that understanding into a real model. Build it by hand first, then accelerate it with AI, and keep the file on your drive.
You leave with: a model you made and can defend.
Carries into Hardening
03Hardening
Take your prompt skills to a training session. Scope it, decide, and defend it to judges.
You leave with: proof you can defend your work under pressure, not just build it.
Carries into Agentic
04Agentic
Wrap what you learned into agentic Claude workflows: reusable Skills that run comps, precedents, and memos for you, with the guardrails to catch what AI gets wrong.
You leave with: a Skill that builds your next model faster.
Loops back to Learn
The workshop
Four ways into the forge.
AlphaForge is one learning platform, built like a workshop. Its core is the Forge: you work through finance in order, from the basics to investments, across 11 sections. Every section gives you the same four things: the points that actually matter, a clear picture of what excellent work looks like, a ready-made Claude Skill that does the work with AI, and how to reshape that Skill until using it is second nature.
The other three areas are where you prove what you built (Arena), find people to build with (Guild), and keep the tools you make (Armory).
Forge
Where you learn and build.
The heart of AlphaForge. You work through the 11 finance sections, build real models by hand and with AI, and earn certificates that show what you can do.
Enter the Forge
Arena
Where you prove it.
Take what you built to a live contest on a real bank, private equity, or FinTech case. You scope it, defend it to judges, and see where you rank.
Step into the Arena
Guild
Where you find your people.
The people around the work. Campus chapters, study groups, and weekly office hours, so you learn with others instead of alone.
Join the Guild
Armory
Where you keep your tools.
Your toolbox. A library of ready-made Claude Skills, templates, and prompts you can copy, use, and adapt for your own work.
Unlock the Armory
Arena · Upcoming
The first Finance-Athon
19 August 2026 · Register before 10 August 2026
- Evaluate cash flows, value firms, and rank against other teams
- Teams of 4 finance students, free to enter
- First prize: 300 EUR in AlphaForge credits
- Runs every quarter, tied to the earnings calendar
Why it matters
The junior analyst job is being rewritten in real time.
Up to roughly 73 percent of foundational analyst hours, on tasks like data cleaning and standardized DCF templates, can now be automated, and the work is shifting from doing to supervising. That sounds like a threat. We treat it as the opening.
Source: Knowledge / AI Capability Assessment 2026
/Turn AI anxiety into control.
Instead of wondering whether the machine takes your seat, you learn to make it work for you. You become the trained operator the tools still need.
/Build real work, not points.
Every track ends in something you made: a full LBO, a comps set, an agent workflow you can demo in an interview. No points pretending to be competence.
/Keep the judgment AI cannot fake.
The AI drafts, you decide. You learn to catch the errors machines make with total confidence, so your leverage compounds on top of real understanding.
/Finally, one clear path.
Learn the fundamentals, build a real model, harden it under pressure, then wrap it into a Skill. One path, in order, so you always know what to learn next.
Proof and credibility
We teach the speed and the catch. That is the whole point.
Claude for Excel reads the entire workbook, every tab, formula, and dependency, before it responds. A full DCF can be scaffolded in around ten minutes. At the same time, the leading models hallucinate figures, break on circular references, and stay blind to EBITDA normalization. We teach both sides.
~73%
of foundational analyst hours are now automatable
~10 min
to scaffold a full DCF with AI in Excel
3 to 5 hrs
saved per week through scenario automation
~64%
best frontier model on a finance-agent benchmark, still below a sharp junior on judgment
Source: Knowledge / AI Capability Assessment 2026
Compound interest is the eighth wonder of the world. He who understands it, earns it; he who doesn't, pays it.
To make money in the markets, you have to think independently and be humble.
AI and finance share one function: to build, to materialise your vision, and to compound your growth.
Straight answers
The questions you are actually asking.
No spin. We pre-empt the objection before you feel it.
Will AI make my analyst skills obsolete?
No, it changes what they are worth. The consensus across senior bankers is that AI absorbs grunt work, not judgment. We make your judgment the product.
Is this just another finance course?
No. Courses make you watch. AlphaForge makes you build and ship. If you finish a sprint, there is a model to show for it.
I am already employed, what is in it for me?
Speed and promotability. You learn the AI-in-Excel and agent workflows your desk is rolling out before they become table stakes, and you get hours back every week.
It is free, so what is the catch?
Students learn free because professionals pay. Their subscriptions fund the platform and subsidise the next generation. That is the model, stated plainly.
Will leaning on AI stop me from really learning?
That is the trap we are built against. AI sits on top of fundamentals here. We document your real answers and surface weaknesses early, so you never fake competence.
Who is at the forge
Built by people who teach finance and build with AI.
Jean-Maurice Henkel
Initiator
Orchestration and management of the platform. Lecturer at the finance department of Maastricht University, founder of EntailCapital and BBMc. Brings the framing, the LLM knowledge, and the realisation of a smart platform.
LinkedInPartners
Partners from the industry who provide expertise in the finance field.
Newsbeat
Get Newsbeat, every month.
Newsbeat is our monthly newsletter. It wraps one real LLM-in-finance calculation, for example modelling the amortisation of a house with depreciation, market demand, and the current price index, plus four reader questions answered the following month on the community page.
Help us reach the first 800 readers. A bigger Newsbeat means a stronger network and sharper finance for everyone in it.
Monthly. Free. Unsubscribe anytime.
Kickstart your career