Cinderwood Foundry
GrowthSmall-batch metal casting for aerospace suppliers, retooled around a 19-employee floor in Erie.
IndustrialSince 2014
Est. 2011 · Erie, Pennsylvania
We buy the companiesother firms scroll past.
Halden Ventures LLC is a small, self-funded holding company. We write checks into industrial, logistics, and health businesses that never make it onto a pitch deck template — and we hold them longer than our LPs think we should.
Industrial◆Health◆Climate◆Logistics◆Data◆Industrial◆Health◆Climate◆Logistics◆Data◆Industrial◆Health◆Climate◆Logistics◆Data◆Industrial◆Health◆Climate◆Logistics◆Data◆
Our whole approach, in three paragraphs
01We only invest money that belongs to the four of us and eleven outside partners we’ve known for more than a decade. No fund cycle means no pressure to deploy capital on a schedule that has nothing to do with the business we’re looking at.
02We look for founders who already have revenue and are tired of explaining their business to people who’ve never set foot in a foundry, a warehouse, or a clinic. Most of our deals come from a phone call, not a data room.
03We’ve held Auger & Co. for eleven years and Cinderwood for ten. If your plan is a sale in eighteen months, we’re probably the wrong desk to pitch.
$0.0M
capital deployed since 2011
0
active and former portfolio companies
0
full exits, three of them profitable
0
years since our first check, to Auger & Co.
What we’ve
actually backed
No logo wall. These are the eight companies we’ll actually talk about on a call, filtered by the sector we categorize them under internally.
Loamfield Robotics
SeedSoil-sensing rigs that ride on existing tillers instead of replacing them — 340 units in the field.
ClimateSince 2019
Verity Instruments
BuyoutBench-top diagnostics for rural clinics; we backed the buyout after the founder's SBA loan fell through.
HealthSince 2009
Basecamp Freight
GrowthRegional less-than-truckload carrier across the Ohio Valley, six terminals, no venture debt.
LogisticsSince 2016
Northwind Data Co.
SeedMunicipal water-usage telemetry sold as a subscription to 41 county utilities.
DataSince 2021
Auger & Co.
ExitedUnion-shop tool refurbishment; we exited in 2023 after an 11-year hold, longer than most of our LPs expected.
IndustrialSince 2004
Palmetto Reef Supply
GrowthCoastal erosion materials — oyster-shell aggregate sold to municipal contractors in three states.
ClimateSince 2018
Wrenfield Diagnostics
SeedPoint-of-care blood panels for veterinary practices, spun out of a state university lab.
HealthSince 2020
Four people, one shared office
RA
Rosalind Achebe
Managing Partner
Ran capital planning for a regional utility before starting Halden in 2011 with two other partners and a shared office above a hardware store.
TW
Tobias Wren
Partner, Operations
Spends most weeks on-site with portfolio companies. Believes a term sheet is the least interesting part of the job.
DO
Delphine Okafor
Partner, Capital Markets
Structures every deal herself. Has never used the phrase "unicorn" in a partner meeting, on principle.
MI
Mateo Isherwood
Principal
Joined from the Cinderwood Foundry shop floor in 2017. Still keeps a set of calipers in his desk drawer.
Questions we get asked
Between $400K and $6M on a first check. We’ve gone as high as $11M into a follow-on for Basecamp Freight when the alternative was a bridge loan from a bank that didn’t understand the business.
Usually. Of our eight active positions, we led six. We’ll follow when the lead is someone we’ve co-invested with before — Sequel Ridge Partners, mostly.
Consumer social, anything ad-funded, and crypto infrastructure. Not a moral position — we’ve just never made money in them and stopped pretending we would.
Tobias sits on four boards. Delphine sits on none by choice. We’re on-site with portfolio companies roughly one week out of every six.
Tell us what you’re building
Skip the deck for now. A few sentences about the business, the revenue, and why you’re emailing a four-person firm in Erie instead of a name-brand fund is plenty to start.
desk@haldenventures.com
+1 (814) 555-0147