What Koble does

Koble, also operating publicly under the brand Rule 30, is a London-based AI research lab and venture capital firm founded in 2020. The company builds a proprietary AI decision engine that applies probabilistic reasoning to evaluate early-stage founders and rank them by breakout potential — specifically identifying the top 10%, 3%, and 0.1% of applicants. Its fund then deploys capital into Pre-Seed and Seed-stage startups across Europe and North America using an index-style strategy that mechanically backs the algorithm's highest-conviction selections rather than relying on traditional relationship-driven sourcing.

The underlying technology is described as a fully algorithmic venture decision system; the firm does not publish patents or benchmark results, but claims a novel method architecture in how it reasons probabilistically about founder quality. Deal sourcing runs through a public founder application portal (founder.rule30.vc) and direct investor outreach. The firm has built a diversified portfolio of roughly 25+ companies spanning fintech, health tech, tech bio, enterprise AI, robotics, cyber, energy, logistics, legal tech, and developer tools, with typical check sizes of $100K–$200K.

Koble's business model is classic venture fund economics: it raises external capital, charges management fees on committed/AUM, and earns carried interest on successful exits. To date, total disclosed funding is approximately $1.95 million across two rounds ($750K in Sept 2021 and $1.2M in Dec 2022, the latter led by Modus with Pitchdrive and angel participation). The firm operates under UK regulatory cover through AQ1443 Ltd (trading as Thema), an FCA-authorized firm (registration 978496), which undertakes the regulated arranging activity for its investment vehicle.

Name

Koble

Legal name

Koble

Website

https://koble.ai

Company type

Private

Founded year

2020

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

1–10 employees

Short description

Koble (Rule 30) is a London-based AI research lab and venture capital firm using a proprietary probabilistic-reasoning decision engine to systematically identify and back outlier Pre-Seed and Seed-stage founders across Europe and North America.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Venture Capital

NAICS

Other Investment Pools and Funds (5259)

SIC

Investment Advice (6282)

akta.pro primary industry

Early-Stage Venture Capital (Series A/B) (FSANAAAB)

akta.pro secondary industry

Accelerators & Incubators (Investor-Operated) (FSANAAAM)

Keywords

• Venture capital investing
• AI-driven startup evaluation
• Pre-seed funding
• Systematic venture capital
• Algorithmic founder selection

Headquarters

HQ city

London

HQ country

United Kingdom

HQ region

Europe

Offices2 records

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Services

Cost components

Personnel, Technology or R&D, Operations, Marketing or Sales, Infrastructure, Others

Revenue model

1. Venture Capital Fund Management: Rule 30 operates as a VC fund making investments in early-stage startups, generating returns through equity appreciation, exits via acquisitions or IPOs, and fund management fees

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion1 record

Distribution channels1 record

Marketing channels2 records

Core offering

Koble (operating the Rule 30 fund) is an AI research lab and venture capital firm that builds a probabilistic AI decision engine to evaluate early-stage founders and systematically deploys capital into Pre-Seed and Seed-stage startups. Typical check sizes range from $100K to $200K, with investment focus across Europe and North America.

Product overview

Koble is a UK-based investment firm that leverages AI algorithms to identify early-stage investments with high potential for outperforming the market. The company raised $1.2 million in a pre-Seed funding round led by Modus with participation from Pitchdrive and angel investors.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

• Rule 30 Pre-Seed and Seed Investment Fund
• Founder Application Portal

Quantifiable outcome

• Ranking top 10%, 3%, and 0.1% of founders by breakout potential

Segments1 record

Ideal customer profiles2 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Feature2 records

Partnerships

One partnership is on record.

• AQ1443 Ltd (Thema)coreOthersAQ1443 Ltd (trading as 'Thema'), a company registered in England and Wales, has been engaged to undertake regulatory activities of making arrangements with a view to transactions in investment. Thema is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) with registration number 978496.

Scale indicators2 records

Recent moves5 records

Expansion highlights4 records

Direct peers

• SignalFire: US-based early-stage VC that uses proprietary data and AI (the Beacon platform) to source, evaluate, and support portfolio companies. Directly comparable to Koble/Rule 30 as a data- and AI-native seed/Series A investor, though operating at significantly larger scale and with a longer track record.
• EQT Ventures (Motherbrain): Pan-European venture fund whose Motherbrain platform ingests millions of data points to help the team identify outlier founders and companies. Directly comparable systematic/AI-driven VC, but embedded in a much larger GP (EQT) with deeper LP reach and a multi-stage mandate.
• Zetta Venture Partners: US-based early-stage fund focused on AI-first companies, with a thesis-driven, research-oriented approach. Comparable to Koble/Rule 30 in framing itself as a research-led, AI-native seed investor, though Zetta invests into AI companies rather than using AI to source.
• InReach Ventures: London-based early-stage venture fund that pioneered a data-driven, machine-learning-led approach to sourcing European pre-seed and seed deals. Closest geographic and methodological peer to Koble/Rule 30 — both are London-based, pre-seed/seed focused, and explicitly algorithmic rather than relationship-driven.
• Correlation Ventures: US-based data-driven venture firm that uses a proprietary analytics engine to inform investment decisions across stages. Highly comparable to Koble in its claim that data and compute can systematically identify outperforming investments rather than relying on partner intuition.
• Bloomberg Beta: US-based early-stage venture firm that explicitly describes itself as 'data-driven' and uses quantitative signals in deal sourcing. Comparable to Koble as a thesis-driven, systematic seed investor, although its sector focus is narrower (enterprise, data, machine intelligence).

Regional players

• MMC Ventures: One of the most active London-based early-stage VCs, with a research-led, thesis-driven investment process across enterprise software, fintech, and AI. Comparable as a UK early-stage investor deploying research into repeatable deal evaluation, though not explicitly algorithmically driven like Koble.

Broad incumbents

• Andreessen Horowitz (a16z): Large, established US venture firm that has built a dedicated AI/tech investing operation and increasingly uses data and software tooling to augment sourcing and portfolio support. Comparable in its public positioning around AI-native venture practices, but operates at vastly larger fund sizes and across stages.

Emerging players

• Antler: Global early-stage firm that runs a systematic, residency-based founder-matching program to find and back outliers across multiple geographies, including Europe. Comparable in its 'systematic identification of founders' model and in its broad geographic coverage; differs in that Antler actively incubates founders pre-investment.
• Entrepreneur First: London-founded, globally-operating talent investor that systematically identifies and assembles outlier founders, then provides pre-company capital. Comparable in its systematic, algorithmically-driven approach to backing founders, though its model is fellowship/incubator-like rather than pure VC.

Market position

Strengths4 records

Weaknesses4 records

Competitive moat4 records

Key risks5 records

Key highlights5 records

Customer concentration

• Xx.com/KobleTeam
• Facebookfacebook.com/KobleTeam
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/kobleteam

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles2 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds2 records

Investors3 records

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Koble