# Ash Rust

> Ash Rust is a seed investor at Sterling Road backing Software and Artificial Intelligence. See 10 investments, check sizes, portfolio. Updated Aug 2026.

- Type: Angel Investor
- Fund: [Sterling Road](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/sterling-road)
- Location: San Francisco, United States
- Total investments: 10
- Last investment: Mar 2026
- Lead investor: 10%
- Last updated: Aug 2026
- LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/ashrust
- X (Twitter): http://twitter.com/ashrust
- Website: http://sterlingroad.com
- Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/ashrust

Ash Rust is a seed investor at Sterling Road in San Francisco focused on Software and Artificial Intelligence. Ash is an entrepreneur turned investor. He is the Managing Partner of Sterling Road, a venture fund focused on pre-seed stage B2B companies. He is currently an advisor to Bullpen Capital and previously worked at Trinity Ventures. Ash has mentored hundreds of startups through accelerator programs including Y-Combinator, Techstars, Alchemist, anduniversities such as Stanford, UC Berkeley, and Oxford.Before investing, Ash was Cofounder and CEO of SendHub (acquired: Cameo Global, Y-Combinator W12) and Director of Ranking at Klout (acquired: Lithium).Ash earned a Masters in Computer Science from Oxford, served as an Officer in the British Army, and currently resides in San Francisco.

## Investment focus

### Industry

| Industry | Investments | Share |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Software | 4 | 40% |
| Artificial Intelligence | 3 | 30% |
| FinTech | 2 | 20% |
| Medical | 2 | 20% |
| Health Care | 2 | 20% |

26 industries tracked in total.

### Stage

| Stage | Investments | Share |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Seed | 4 | 40% |
| Pre-Seed | 3 | 30% |
| Series A | 3 | 30% |

## Investments

| Company | Description | Amount | Stage | Date | Website |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Zalos | Zalos creates AI tools that automate finance tasks, handle invoices, manage payments, and integrate with accounting systems. | $3.6M | Seed | Mar 24, 2026 |  |
| Aster | Clinic enablement software for women's health providers, keeping them private and independent and helping to reduce poor health outcomes. | $2.4M | Pre-Seed | Jan 30, 2024 |  |
| Puzzle Financial | Puzzle Financial is a modern data platform for startups | $15M | Series A | Feb 16, 2023 |  |
| Empower Sleep | Empower Sleep provides personalized sleep care online |  | Pre-Seed | Jan 31, 2023 |  |
| Groundfloor | Building the infrastructure for IRL community | $2M | Seed | Aug 24, 2022 |  |
| Amper Technologies | Amper enables manufacturers to always meet production targets and level-up operations using real-time visibility. With our powerful machine monitoring and analytics tools, teams can easily identify the root causes of issues and systematically unlock hidden capacity and production losses. Born on the shop floor, Amper is simple to use and takes onlyminutes to deploy on any kind of machine. We empower entire manufacturing teams - from operators to plant managers - with actionable data and intuitive software. Amper's vision is to create a FactoryOS to unleash the potential of every manufacturer and create world-class operations. Amper is headquartered in Chicago IL and was founded in 2016 by Akshat Thirani and Philip House. | $11M | Series A | Mar 25, 2022 |  |
| Kyte | Kyte is a technology and operations company that offers on-demand cars delivered to customers for as long as they need them — for a day, a few days or a few weeks or months. Kyte is operating in 10+ cities in the US and growing at rapid pace. Francesco Wiedemann, Ludwig Schoenack, and Nikolaus Volk formed the company in San Francisco, Californiain 2019. | $30M | Series A | Oct 06, 2021 |  |
| Groundfloor | Building the infrastructure for IRL community | $3M | Pre-Seed | Aug 26, 2021 |  |
| Breinify | Breinify’s mission is to democratize data science. Today, we have built a powerful predictive personalization at scale platform for consumer enterprises. Our lightweight platform enables consumer brand marketers to deliver powerful personalization in real-time without having to support an in-house data science team.Breinify customers includeBevMo!, Duraflame, Hidden Valley Ranch, and many more to drive $125M in new revenue, 20x results (between split testing) for 2+ page visits, and +105% in CRM growth.Breinify technology is powered by our proprietary AI which blends traditional machine learning and complex temporal algorithms to learn, react, be proactive, and make extremely granular intelligent decisions that vary for each individual at any time. In 2021, Breinify has up-sold to >80% of existing customers with incredible land and expand / GTM strategies. Breinify is headquartered in San Francisco, California. Raised a $11M oversubscribed seed round led by Gutbrain Ventures, PBJ Capital, and Streamlined Ventures. Participation from CXO Fund, Startup Capital Ventures, Amino Capital, Sterling Road, and others. | $6.2M | Seed | Apr 10, 2021 |  |
| Ardius | Ardius is a rethinking tax with automation, AI, and technology. |  | Seed | Jan 01, 2021 |  |

10 of 10 investments shown.

## Co-investors
- [Everywhere Ventures](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/everywhere-ventures) — VC Fund, 3 deals together
- [Hustle Fund](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/hustle-fund) — VC Fund, 3 deals together
- [2048 Ventures](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/2048-ventures) — VC Fund, 2 deals together
- [Corazon Capital](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/corazon-capital) — VC Fund, 2 deals together
- [CXO Fund](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/cxo-fund) — VC Fund, 2 deals together
- [Foundation Capital](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/foundation-capital) — VC Fund, 2 deals together

## About Sterling Road

VC Fund · San Francisco, United States

Sterling Road is a venture capital firm that invests in pre-seed stage B2B startups. Sterling Road was founded in 2017 in San Francisco, California.

1 contacts available at Sterling Road.

| Name | Title | Profile |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Ash Rust | Managing Partner | https://shizune.co/investors/profile/ash-rust |

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## FAQ

### What does Ash Rust invest in?

Ash Rust invests primarily in Software, Artificial Intelligence and FinTech startups, most often at Seed and Pre-Seed stage. Most of the 10 investments tracked by Shizune back companies in United States. The Investment Focus section breaks down every industry, stage and country in the portfolio.

### When did Ash Rust last invest?

The most recent investment recorded for Ash Rust closed in Mar 2026. Shizune tracks 10 investments in total for this profile, including round sizes, stages and portfolio companies, all sourced from confirmed public funding rounds and refreshed monthly.

### Is Shizune's investor data accurate?

Yes — every stat on this profile is calculated from confirmed public funding rounds monitored across hundreds of sources since 2020. This profile was last refreshed in Aug 2026 and is updated monthly. Spotted something off? Use the “Suggest an edit” link near the top of the page.

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