A small firm, built to stay small.
Rifatela was founded in 2014 by an operator who wanted the kind of investor she never had. Three funds later, the strategy has not changed much.
Most early-stage money arrives with advice nobody asked for.
Amara raised her first round from people who had never shipped anything. The capital was welcome. The board meetings were theatre.
Rifatela is the correction. Partners who have operated, cheques written early, decisions made in weeks, and honest answers when we do not know something.
That approach limits how big we can get, and we are comfortable with that. A larger fund would force us to write cheques we do not believe in.
Eleven years, briefly.
First fund, $60M
Amara raised it after selling her payments company. The pitch to LPs was simple: fewer companies, earlier cheques, partners who had built things.
First exits, first lessons
Cadensworth and two others found their footing. We also lost money on three companies where we backed a market rather than a team.
New York and Singapore
We followed founders rather than opening offices for the sake of it. Both were led by people who had already spent years in those markets.
Third fund, $240M
Same strategy, more reserves. Around 60 percent of the fund is held back for follow-on rounds in companies we already know well.
64 companies and counting
Six people, three offices, one mandate. We aim to make eight to ten new investments a year and keep the portfolio small enough to know properly.
What we hold ourselves to.
Answer quickly, even when the answer is no
Founders are spending the scarcest thing they have. A slow no costs them more than a fast one costs us.
Write the reasoning down
Every investment has an internal memo and every pass has a reason. We share both with the founder. It keeps us honest when we are wrong, which happens.
Stay in the details
We read the code review, the churn cohort, the support tickets. Pattern matching from a distance is how firms miss the interesting companies.
Take the long view on people
We have backed four founders twice, including two whose first company did not work. Judgment compounds even when a company does not.
The firm in numbers.
- Founded
- 2014, London. Offices in New York and Singapore since 2019.
- Stage
- Pre-seed and seed. Occasionally a Series A when we know the team well.
- Cheque size
- $500k to $6M initially, with reserves for later rounds.
- Ownership
- We target 10 to 15 percent and will go lower for the right team.
- Geography
- Europe, North America, and Southeast Asia. Remote teams welcome.
- Capital
- Three funds, $420M under management. Backed by endowments, foundations, and founders we have worked with.
- Decision time
- Two to three weeks from first meeting to term sheet.
Where we put our weight outside the portfolio.
We publish our diversity data with each annual LP letter, including the uncomfortable years. In 2024, 38 percent of our new investments had a female or non-binary founder.
Ten percent of the partnership carry goes to a fund that supports founders raising a first round without a network. It has backed nine companies so far.
We do not invest in surveillance technology sold to states, gambling, or anything whose business model depends on people misunderstanding a contract.
Open roles.
Tell us what you are building.
Send a short note. We read every one and reply within five working days, whatever the answer.