Swell Partners

Swell Partners is a mission-oriented, growth-minded venture capital firm based in New York City that is obsessed with helping portfolio companies build world-class teams in order to give them the competitive edge. Swell backs extraordinary founders building category-creating companies and gives them an unfair recruiting advantage. You can think of Swell as a next-gen venture firm with the DNA of a world-class talent agency. Early stage and category agnostic, Swell VC typically invests in seed and series A stage companies across multiple sectors. For the last decade, Swell VC founders Rusty Ralston and Jay Patil have played a key role in the expansion of the New York City tech ecosystem through their investments and startup sales recruiting practice. Previously, as early employees of a venture-backed talent assessment machine learning startup, they learned the importance of recruiting and how a winning culture can determine the outcome of a company. With this serving as the foundation, Swell has solidified a track record of investing in and building some of New York City’s most recent success stories, including Tapad’s $360MM exit. “You win with people” is not a cliche — it is the definition of Swell’s approach with founders and the core philosophy on shaping industry winners. Swell has established an elite talent network comprised of sales, business development, product, and marketing executives who have scaled startups from inception to acquisition and/or IPO. As the best candidates are never looking, Swell helps portfolio companies access top-performing talent that appears hidden or unavailable. Swell VC is a true partner and extension of the team that adds material value where founders need it most: people.