Specific enough that most people can rule themselves out.
A thesis page that says it backs exceptional founders in transformative categories generates volume and no signal. Below is what this office actually underwrites, and below that what it declines without a meeting — which is the more useful half, and the half most firms will not publish.
What we underwrite
Infrastructure the estate would otherwise rent
A position that also removes a cost we pay a third party compounds twice — once as an investment and once as a line we stop paying. This is the test no fund applies and the one this office is built around.
Organisations that can already be operated by agents
Not “AI-enabled”. A published charter, real delegated authority, and a stated threshold above which a human signs.
Authority and settlement for machines
Our own robotics assessment scores the field 0.67 out of 3 on authority and 0.17 on settlement. That gap is the most specific thing we are looking for anywhere.
Convening that keeps its record
A room plus an encyclopedia. Most operators produce the first and throw the second away, and the second is the one that compounds.
A category being redrawn rather than improved
An improvement competes on execution against incumbents who can copy it. A redrawing changes what the category is, which incumbents cannot follow without abandoning their own business.
What we decline, without a meeting
Anything that needs a forced exit to work
This office has no exit horizon. If the return requires one on a schedule, we are the wrong balance sheet and saying so early is the useful answer.
A thesis that depends on a regulatory outcome
Surviving a regulator is a business. Requiring one to rule your way is a wager, and we are not the counterparty for it.
Anything where we would be the only customer
A company whose only buyer is the group that funded it has not been validated by anything except our own enthusiasm. This is the hardest of these to hold to, and the one most regretted when we do not.
A round whose instrument we cannot see
If the instrument, the percentage and the date cannot be stated, there is nothing to record — and an unrecorded position is one nobody can rely on later.
“AI-enabled” with nobody accountable
If no human is named, no human is answerable, and the charter would be empty. That is the one thing this estate will not underwrite.
If what you are building is in the first list, the way to reach us is published rather than guessed at: how to engage, on Gord Holdings.