The thesis

Most investors write a cheque and wait for the update call. We write code.

A22 Capital is a private investment company — we back early AI-native startups with our own capital, then operate alongside the founder with the same agent stack behind Clubbing, Membrs, Setora and Distro. That operating discipline is the product. When we back a company, that's what shows up: not a board seat, a working system.

Fit

What we look for.

Pre-seed or seed

Before the round has a lead, not after.

A technical founder

Someone who can already ship, not a slide deck looking for an engineer.

AI-native, not AI-flavoured

The model is load-bearing, not a chatbot bolted onto a normal product.

One or two people

Small enough that agents can be half the team.

How it starts

Four steps, in this order.

Step 1

First call

Thirty minutes on what you're building and why it needs to exist. No deck required.

Step 2

We build for a week

Before any money moves, we sit inside the problem alongside you — same agents, same stack we run our own ventures on.

Step 3

Terms, once there's something to price

Investment sized to the round, not to a fund mandate we need to deploy.

Step 4

Inside the network

Access to what A22 Capital already runs — growth playbooks, vertical AI operating experience, whatever's actually useful to you.

Before you write

What this isn't.

Not a residency

No relocating for a cohort. We come to the problem.

Not talent-first

We're not investing in you before you have a product. Build the first version, then talk to us.

Not a fund with a mandate to deploy

We invest what makes sense for the company, not what a fund cycle requires us to place.

Not a board seat grab

We're useful or we're not. That's the only leverage we want.

Portfolio

We back what we'd build ourselves.

Live companies, real revenue, no vaporware — the same bar applies whether we wrote every line or backed the founder who did.

[ See the portfolio ]

Capital with hands on the keyboard.