Rugged Ventures
VC Fund
New York, United States
Rugged Ventures is a venture capital firm investing in seed-stage companies. Founded by Dave Lerner, Rugged Ventures has been making seed stage investments since 2001.
- Total investments:
- 14
- Last investment:
- Lead investor:
- 0%
Last updated:
For AI agents: llms.txt
Industries Rugged Ventures invests in
Stages Rugged Ventures invests in
Countries Rugged Ventures invests in
Round sizes
Contacts
| Name | Phone | Socials | |
|---|---|---|---|
4 more contacts available
Round size
- Seed
- $800k–$4M
- Series A
- $8.5M–$8.8M
Investment Focus
Industry
- E-Commerce 3 (21%)
- Content 2 (14%)
- Internet 2 (14%)
- Software 2 (14%)
- Logistics 2 (14%)
Stage
- Seed 12 (86%)
- Series A 2 (14%)
Country
- United States 12 (86%)
- Canada 1 (7%)
Team
| Name | Title | Investments | Links | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Dave Lerner
Founder
|
Founder | Total investments: 11 | Find email |
Investments
| Company | Description | Round | Links |
|---|---|---|---|
Homer Logistics
|
Homer uses technology and operations to make local, final-mile deliveries more efficient. Through the use of mobile tracking, routing, and communication, Homer delivers more orders in fewer miles traveled. With optimization algorithms for routing a controlled fleet of delivery personnel, Homer reduces the cost of delivery and provides a scalablesolution to the local delivery ecosystem. | $8.5M / Series A / Jun 26, 2017 | |
Viro Media
|
Viro Media helps mobile developers to easily add VR to their apps using familiar tools and code bases. | $2.5M / Seed / Mar 22, 2017 | |
KidPass
|
KidPass is the leading destination for parents to discover and book amazing children’s activities. | $800K / Seed / Sep 28, 2016 | |
Source3
|
Source3 is the world’s first platform for end-to-end management of intellectual property in user-generated content (UGC). We provide IP recognition, licensing and rights administration services to connect creators, marketplaces and brands and enable monetization of user content across physical and digital products. Our team has built successfullicensing platforms powering digital music, user-generated videos and 3D printing. Source3 offers scalable, turn-key solutions for today’s global licensing challenges. | $4M / Seed / Sep 15, 2015 | |
|
Homer Logistics
|
Homer uses technology and operations to make local, final-mile deliveries more efficient. Through the use of mobile tracking, routing, and communication, Homer delivers more orders in fewer miles traveled. With optimization algorithms for routing a controlled fleet of delivery personnel, Homer reduces the cost of delivery and provides a scalablesolution to the local delivery ecosystem. | $2M / Seed / Jul 21, 2015 | |
Astro
|
Astro specializes in developing an automated home system of devices. It requires no installation, no new infrastructure, and no new wireless networks making it the simplest platform on the market. | $3M / Seed / Jun 24, 2015 | |
Firstleaf
|
Firstleaf is America's most personalized wine company that uses millions of data points to produce and curate each shipment of award-winning wine from around the world so that members can explore new bottles and discover new favorites tailored to their tastes. The company, which was founded by Philip James, a wine industry veteran andOxford-educated chemist, offers a subscription service that unites the art and science of wine.Firstleaf brings together proprietary technology, expert winemakers and a WSET-certified concierge team, to build a unique Wine Profile for each member and curate each shipment individually. With no preset packs or boxes, Firstleaf has over 82 million combinations of wines possible and 98% of its monthly boxes are unique. Its team of winemakers sample over 10,000 wines each year across 5 continents and 12 countries to select only the finest bottles. With more than 700,000 12-bottle cases sold last year, Firstleaf is the #1 trusted wine brand in consumer rankings. Nearly one million people have tried Firstleaf since the brand's inception.Its wines have won over 2,800 awards, including over 300 90+ point scores, and 92% of its wines are award-winning. This year, Firstleaf was named one of Fast Company's World's Most Innovative Companies in the data science category and recognized as one of Wine Business Monthly's 50 Largest Wineries. This came on the heels of being named Wine Company of the Year in Winemaker Challenge International's 2021 wine competition, one of the only U.S. wine competitions judged exclusively by professional winemakers. | Seed / Jan 01, 2015 | |
Knock
|
Knock is an online home selling platform that makes buying or selling a home simple and certain. Launched by founding team members from Trulia.com, the company uses data science to price homes accurately, technology to sell homes quickly and a dedicated team of professionals to guide homeowners through the selling process. | Seed / Jan 01, 2015 | |
ChangeTip
|
ChangeTip facilitates global micropayments across every social media or digital platform. | Seed / Dec 02, 2014 | |
Body Labs
|
Body Labs is a horizontal solution provider of human-aware AI that understands the way we move and how we’re shaped to make our world more personal. The company is comprised of the best in artificial intelligence, computer vision, and body modeling. It aims to deliver human-aware AI as the next digital platform to empower the capture and use of 3Dbody motion and shape for numerous industries.It was founded in 2013 and is headquartered in New York, New York. | $2.2M / Seed / Nov 13, 2014 | |
| See all 14 investments → | |||
Co-Investors
Company Ventures
2 deals together
Company Ventures
2 deals together
Crosslink Capital
2 deals together
Lerer Hippeau
2 deals together
Techstars
2 deals together
Two Sigma Ventures
2 deals together
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FAQ
What does Rugged Ventures invest in?
Rugged Ventures invests primarily in E-Commerce, Content and Internet startups, most often at Seed and Series A stage. Most of the 14 investments tracked by Shizune back companies in United States. The Investment Focus section breaks down every industry, stage and country in the portfolio.
What is Rugged Ventures's check size?
Rugged Ventures typically joins rounds of $800k–$4M at Seed and $8.5M–$8.8M at Series A. These ranges are 10th–90th percentile round sizes calculated from confirmed public funding rounds, so they are a realistic guide to the rounds Rugged Ventures participates in.
How do I contact Rugged Ventures?
Public channels for Rugged Ventures include LinkedIn, X (Twitter) and the website linked on this profile. For a verified work email and phone number, create a free Shizune account — contact data is searched across 20+ sources and validated before delivery, so your outreach lands in the right inbox.
Who are the partners at Rugged Ventures?
The team at Rugged Ventures includes Dave Lerner (Founder). The Team section lists each member with their title, investment count and links.
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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