In November 2024, a founder building refrigeration technology was hearing a familiar objection. Hardware was hard. Raising money around the holidays was harder. Hardware for refrigerated trucking? That seemed to finish the conversation before the interesting part began. Snowline co-founder Jumana Al Hashal later described a dozen conversations with generalist investors that opened with the same weary observation.
- rpv backs companies built around scientific advances.
- Its offer combines capital, technical scrutiny and business connections.
- The fund is fully deployed; its focus has shifted to supporting the portfolio.
Then rpv saw the deck through Deep Checks. According to Al Hashal, its money arrived before Christmas. Her account, shared by rpv on LinkedIn, contains a wonderfully practical distinction: Snowline needed investors who could read a bill of materials and evaluate manufacturing. Twenty-two months later, she reported more than 8,000 validation hours, customer deployments and renewed support from Arkady Kulik for an active seed round.
That is a useful place to begin understanding rpv. The interesting question was what happened after someone said hardware was hard. Could the investor tell which hard parts were solvable?
The experiment needs an interpreter
rpv invests in early-stage deep technology: businesses whose central advantage comes from scientific or engineering advances. Its portfolio connects subjects that rarely share a dinner table: neuroscience, medical devices, energy storage, advanced materials and manufacturing. What they share is the need to move a physical discovery into a product someone will use.
In a 2022 Hello Tomorrow interview, Kulik described a team built around a scientist, an entrepreneur and a banker. He handled sourcing, venture building and operations. Co-founder Tamaz Khundzhua, a theoretical physicist, handled scientific verification and relationships with scientists. The proposed division of labor was straightforward: give entrepreneurs scientific expertise and scientists business expertise.
The translation runs both ways. A researcher may know exactly why an experiment matters but struggle to explain a manufacturing plan. An investor may understand a large market while missing the reason a laboratory result cannot survive outside carefully controlled conditions. Bringing those people into the same conversation is part of the work.
rpv’s current team includes neuroscience venture partner Richard Silberstein and entrepreneurship venture partner Paul Kewene-Hite, alongside advisers in intellectual property, finance and corporate ventures. The firm describes scientific rigor and ethical standards as its two guiding principles. That combination makes particular sense when a portfolio includes technologies intended to act on the brain.
A $250,000 obstacle on the engineer’s desk
Consider Studio 3e8. The metal-printing startup describes an industry where systems can cost $250,000 or more, accompanied by hazardous processing steps and chemicals. Those barriers help explain why an engineer might still send a part away to be made, then wait for it to come back.
Studio 3e8 is developing a desktop alternative with an integrated combination of hardware, software and materials. In November 2024, it announced a $2 million seed round led by Draper Associates, with Boost VC, rpv and Blue Collective participating. That figure is the startup’s total round, rather than rpv’s individual contribution.
Studio 3e8’s announced seed round, with rpv among four named investors.
The company’s proposition is easy to picture: give engineers and designers more control over fabrication by bringing metal printing closer to their desks. A cheaper machine alone would leave plenty unresolved. Materials, workflow and usability also matter. The integrated approach addresses the whole chain between a digital design and a usable metal part.
This is where the fund sits in the market. It supplies early capital and technical judgment to companies facing commercialization work. Studio 3e8 builds the printer. Its eventual buyers are engineers and designers. rpv backs the business trying to serve them.
A portfolio with several kinds of physics
The same logic appears in Photon Vault, which stores thermal energy and converts it into electricity. Its design can incorporate industrial waste heat or solar heat. The extra heat matters: it explains the company’s claim that electrical output can exceed electricity drawn from the grid. There is another energy input in the calculation.
Elsewhere, MesoMat combines tire-mounted sensors with cloud dashboards for fleet operators. Its application is pleasingly unglamorous: detect leaks, monitor temperatures and make tire condition visible. SixLine Semiconductor is commercializing carbon nanotube processing, addressing purification and alignment problems that have held back practical applications. These companies sell into very different markets, but each needs its science to become repeatable, usable technology.
An editorial framework for reading the portfolio, rather than a published rpv investment checklist.
The useful part of saying no
On the Boost VC podcast, Kulik discussed the difficulty of differentiating a new fund and the value of providing technical validation alongside entrepreneurial experience. Scientific fluency offers a reason for a founder to take the call. It still has to lead to useful decisions.
In a separate 2025 conversation with Eric Jorgenson, he described a process designed to identify mismatches quickly. A rapid rejection, in his account, respects a founder’s time. The point is practical: understand whether the investor’s strategy fits before spending weeks performing enthusiasm for one another.
“The absolute worst is this lingering maybe.”Arkady Kulik, speaking with Eric Jorgenson
For founders, the copyable lesson is to make three things legible: the evidence behind the science, the route to a usable product and the fit with the investor. A technically impressive project can still be a poor venture investment if its market or financing needs do not match the fund.
For a founder reading this portfolio, the useful exercise is to name the next uncertainty a check would help resolve. It might concern the device, the production process or the buyer. An investor who understands that uncertainty can have a more precise conversation about progress. That is a reasonable test to bring to any specialist fund.
There is also a timing issue. In March 2026, Kulik announced that rpv was fully deployed, describing the next chapter as value creation across the portfolio. For those companies, the question now becomes wonderfully concrete: what can the investor help get built, tested, hired or sold?