Rampersand Research
Investment Thesis
Rampersand is an Australian seed venture firm that backs ambitious founders born in, based in, or headquartered in Australia and New Zealand, wherever in the world they build. Its tagline is "First to believe. First to invest." It writes inception, pre-seed and seed cheques and concentrates on three shapes of company: vertical AI that rebuilds whole industries, hard tech where software meets atoms (quantum, robotics, climate, life sciences), and horizontal AI that rewrites how work gets done. The site also lists four long arcs it writes about: AI-native software, the new work stack, deep tech built in ANZ, and under-reported industries such as hospitality, logistics, payments and agriculture. About 10% of the book is deliberately "anomalies" that fit no thesis.
Stage Focus
Inception, pre-seed and seed. The firm says large seed rounds are in scope and true Series A is not where it plays, though it follows on into later rounds (Goterra Series B, PredictHQ Series C, Quantum Brilliance Series A).
Check Size
First cheque of $250K to $2.5M, sized to ownership rather than round size. Target entry ownership is 8 to 15%. It holds back 50 to 60% of the fund as follow-on reserves, roughly 2x the first cheque.
Lead Tendency
Leads or co-leads. The firm says it prices and papers rounds and takes a board seat. The portfolio table shows Lead on most seed entries, Co-lead on Cuttable, and Follow on a minority (Hatch, Cor, Quantum Brilliance, Sapia, Skedulo and others).
Recent Activity
- Oct 2026: portfolio company Cuttable raised a $20M Series A (Rampersand investment note, 27 Oct 2026).
- Mar 2026: Cuttable follow-on of $5.7M.
- Feb 2026: led Parachute's A$1.8M pre-seed (legal OS).
- Dec 2025: led Cor's A$2M pre-seed (voice AI onboarding agent).
- Nov 2025: led Keeyu (AI agents for ecommerce operations).
- Apr 2026: Dexibit exited to accesso.
- The current fund is an ESVCLP with a next close listed as 30 June 2026, so it is raising and deploying.
Portfolio Highlights
The site lists 34 companies since 2013 across active and exited positions. Notable names include JigSpace (spatial computing), Cuttable (AI advertising, Forbes Australia profile of its founder), Goterra (robotic insect farms), Quantum Brilliance (room-temperature diamond quantum computing), PredictHQ (demand intelligence), Skedulo, Zai, Spaceship, Cake Equity, Sapia.ai, Hatch, Restoke and Mass Dynamics. Exits include Nosto (via Stackla), Dexibit (accesso) and a partial exit in The Pistol.
Team
- Paul Naphtali, Co-Founder and Managing Partner. An operator who started the firm in 2013.
- Andrew Poesaste, Partner.
- Taryn Pieterse, Partner.
- Sunday Berry, Head of Operations (also the LP contact).
- Phil Jacob, Senior Associate.
- Rod Hamilton, Venture Partner, Culture Amp co-founder, chairs Product Counsel (joined Aug 2024).
- Helen Souness, Venture Partner, ex-Etsy and SEEK.
- Hugh Williams, Venture Partner, ex-eBay and Microsoft.
The firm describes itself as four partners and ten people, deliberately small, with the lead partner staying on each deal across rounds.
Decision Process
Partnership with an Investment Committee made up of partners plus two senior operator-advisors. The stated process is a 30 minute first meeting, two or three working sessions, reference checks both ways, a 60 minute IC and a term sheet, all under 14 days. Every deal is framed with a "What Do We Need To Believe" document covering founder, market, insight, a believable 12 month plan, and the ability to return the fund. There is a no-ghost policy and no NDAs before diligence.
Founder Preferences
Founders with earned insight and founder-market fit, often domain experts, ex-founders or operators, who are obsessed with the problem. Markets that are large or becoming large. Companies that could return the fund if they work. Founders only need to be ANZ-born, ANZ-based or ANZ-headquartered, so many portfolio founders are based in San Francisco or New York.
Geographic Focus
Australia and New Zealand origin, global operation. Offices in Melbourne (HQ, Cremorne) and Sydney (Surry Hills), with a San Francisco presence referenced on the site.
Fund Structure and Platform
Four funds since 2013, over $100M of invested principal. Fund I was $5.4M invested; TechCrunch covered the original $6M launch in 2013. The current fund is an Early Stage Venture Capital Limited Partnership (ESVCLP) with 2% management fee and 20% carry, A$500K minimum commitment and about 40% raised from ANZ founders and operators. Platform: Sales Lead Generator, a 400+ operator Connected Network, Product Counsel with ex-CPOs, Giant Warm Intro (median 1.3 hops), Code & Coffee for engineers, and day-one AI compute credits. It publishes the Ramplify newsletter and investment notes on Substack.