Access is earned. Years of showing up become the trust that opens every door. Rising Tide Partners connects exceptional founders with the people, capital, and opportunities that change company trajectories. We invest earliest where our access runs deepest — and build alongside.
A decade of showing up compounds into something you can measure. Across the companies we've backed, the same pattern holds: relationships convert into deals, and the network does the work capital alone can't.
Commercial aviation still flies the same tube-and-wing shape it has for seventy years. Natilus builds a family of blended-wing-body aircraft — KONA for freight and HORIZON EVO for passengers — for roughly 30% less fuel burn, more volume, and less noise.
$28M Series A led by Draper Associates · $24B order book, 570+ aircraft reserved
The ocean is the largest sensing gap on Earth. Seasats builds solar-electric autonomous surface vessels — the Lightfish flagship runs up to six months and 8,000nm, Quickfish sprints past 35 knots, and Heavyfish follows in 2026. Missions completed for defense, science, and commercial customers worldwide.
First autonomous Taiwan Strait transit · $20M Series A (Konvoy Ventures)
MEMS fabrication has been stalled for decades. Omnitron builds the first 3D-designed micromachine — bringing 3D polysilicon to hybrid sensor and actuator design for orders-of-magnitude gains in performance, precision, and reliability at lower cost. It unlocks more responsive AI data centers, greater autonomy, climate sensing, and next-generation XR.
Named to the EE Times Silicon 100
The earliest signal of disease is the hardest to read. Xzōm harnesses extracellular vesicles (exosomes) via a proprietary Alternating Current Electrokinetics (ACE) platform — isolating and analyzing them from under 100µL of blood in less than 30 minutes. Lead target: early pancreatic cancer detection.
Near-patient exosome platform · lead application in early cancer detection
Bluefin tuna is the pinnacle of seafood — and increasingly at risk. BlueNalu develops cell-cultivated seafood, beginning with bluefin tuna toro: exceptional seafood made without fishing. Founded in Hawaii, now rooted in San Diego.
Developing cell-cultivated bluefin tuna toro · 50+ global partnerships
In modern conflict, fixed factories are targets and supply chains can’t keep pace. Firestorm Labs builds xCell — a containerized factory that deploys to the point of need and prints what the mission demands. Its flagship output is modular drones, printed in under 24 hours; the same platform has printed vehicle parts on-site that would otherwise take months to source. One idea underneath: affordable mass, manufactured wherever the fight is.
$82M Series B · $100M USAF IDIQ contract · HP global manufacturing partnership
Communities run on gatherings, and gatherings need infrastructure. Eventship is the platform for hosts who build community — events, registration, and the connective layer underneath.
Event & community platform · powers RTP Communities
The pool guy never changed — opaque, analog, easy to doubt. Cabana modernizes pool service end to end: an instant online quote in minutes, vetted certified techs for weekly cleaning and repair, and a timestamped photo plus chemical report after every visit.
2,300+ pools under management · national roll-up via acquisition
Competitive games live in walled-off silos. Bear Club Games is a new studio modernizing competitive genres in one dynamic world — built for player loyalty that compounds over years, not weekends.
New studio · backed by New York Ventures & Versus Ventures
Anduril has Lattice. We have the Access Engine. Every company in the fleet is made stronger by the same connective layer — a network of operators, capital, and context that routes the right person to the right founder at the right moment.
Neal writes on hardtech, San Diego's startup ecosystem, and what it actually takes to build and back hard companies — including the annual San Diego Hardtech 50. Read it on Substack.
Whether you're building a company, deploying capital, or advancing the ecosystem — there's a bearing for you.