How we invest

First cheques. Fast answers. Standard paper.

Everything about how Rutenberg Capital invests fits on one page. That is deliberate. If a firm needs a brochure to explain how it invests, ask what the brochure is for.

Pitch us The process
StagePre-seed & seed
RoleFirst cheque; lead or follow
GeographyAnywhere with a signature
DecisionDays, not months

I Definitions

§ 1.1Stage

Pre-seed and seed. Up to and including your first priced round.

We are most useful when the company is one or two people and a working product, or a prototype with users who would be upset if it disappeared. We are comfortable being the first yes. We are not a growth investor and do not pretend to be.

§ 1.2Role

First cheque. Often the first cheque.

We lead pre-seed rounds when asked and join rounds led by others when the terms are standard. We do not ask for a board seat at pre-seed; we ask for the phone number and use it sparingly. You run the company.

§ 1.3Founders

AI-native. Have done hard things before. Ship daily. Not ordinary.

We back the founder who uses models the way an earlier generation used electricity — constantly, without ceremony — and who builds in a week what a funded team built in a quarter in 2022. Degrees and employers are not evidence. What you made is. The founders page is blunter about this.

§ 1.4Geography

International by default.

We are a Wyoming company and we invest in founders wherever they are. Some corporate structures take an extra week of paperwork; none of them are a reason to say no. If you can take a call and sign a standard document, you are close enough.

§ 1.5Speed

First reply within three business days. A written decision within about two weeks of the first call.

Speed is not a marketing line here; it is the product. The people you talk to are the people who decide, so there is no meeting to wait for and no partner to "socialise it with". If we need more time we will say so, say why, and say when.

§ 1.6Terms

Standard documents. No exotic clauses. Read it in an afternoon.

Industry-standard SAFE or priced-round forms. No ratchets, no super pro-rata traps, no surprise vetoes, no side letters you will regret. If a clause needs a lawyer to explain it, we do not want it either. The full comparison is on the front page.

II What we are not

A growth fund. An accelerator. A venture studio. A consultancy. A bank. A committee. Patient in the wrong way. The first cheque.

We also do not invest in funds, real-estate projects or tokens, and we do not offer advisory, brokerage or asset-management services to anyone. We back companies. That is the whole list.

III Process

Five steps. Two weeks.

The whole thing, start to wire. Nothing is hidden behind "it depends".

  1. Email

    Five sentences, one link, subject "Pitch: <company>". Cold is fine. Exact format.

    Day 0

  2. Reply

    A decision-maker reads it and answers: a call, or a short honest no with the reason.

    ≤ 3 business days

  3. Call

    One conversation. Show us the product and what you shipped last week. We will ask what broke.

    Week 1

  4. Decision

    Yes or no, in writing, with reasons. If yes, the terms are in the same email.

    ≈ Week 2

  5. Wire

    Standard documents, quick signatures, funds sent. Then you go back to work and so do we.

    Days after yes

IV Principles

How we behave.

Written down so you can hold us to them. Please do.

  1. i.

    A fast no is a gift. A slow maybe is theft.

    Your time is the scarcest thing in the company. We will not spend it to keep an option open for ourselves.

  2. ii.

    Evidence over credentials.

    What you built, shipped and sold outranks where you studied or worked. Every time. We do not ask for a CV and we would not read one.

  3. iii.

    Standard terms are a feature.

    Clever paperwork is how investors extract value from founders who cannot afford good lawyers. We would rather earn it.

  4. iv.

    Quiet unless called.

    We do not need a monthly deck. We do want to know when something is on fire, and we pick up the phone when it is.

  5. v.

    Speed is respect.

    Moving at the founder's pace is the least an investor can do. Moving slower and calling it diligence is not diligence.

  6. vi.

    We can be wrong. Tell us.

    If we pass and you prove us wrong, write again. We keep a note of those. It is the most useful list we own.

That is the whole method.

Now you know more about how we invest than most people know about their own investors.

Pitch us About the firm