Impact Investment

Capital that builds companies — and a better world.

We back entrepreneurs who share our conviction that a business can deliver real financial returns and genuine environmental and social benefit at the same time.

Who we are

About

Ryanna Capital is an impact-investment firm founded on its own entrepreneurial success. In 1989, Rud Browne started Ryzex, the first company globally to solve the problem of full-lifecycle management of mobile-computer technology. Cash flow positive from day one, his small initial investment grew over two decades into a global business across five countries, serving thousands of customers and employing more than 360 people. He sold the company in 2011, and those proceeds are the funds Ryanna Capital invests today. Having built and sold a company himself, he now partners with the next generation of innovators.

Since 2011, the firm has reinvested that capital in the next generation of entrepreneurs, favouring companies that pair commercial promise with environmental and social benefit — from wastewater recycling, energy and fuel efficiency, and reduced industrial waste to live classroom instruction, drug-resistant-malaria treatment, smarter urban storage, and safer surgery. Its recent focus has been on repurposing damaged land to provide clustered family homes and restoring wildlife habitat. Ryanna's current focus is on how AI can be used to solve some of the world's most pressing environmental problems. Across every partnership, Ryanna looks for the same thing: committed teams pursuing economic and environmental returns at the same time.

1989A founder's vision

360+

People employed at Ryzex

Countries of operation

2011

Founder-led exit reinvested ever since

Multiple

Mission-driven companies backed

Our story

History

Ryanna Capital grew out of an entrepreneurial success story of its own. Ryzex began with a single insight and a small personal investment, and over two decades became a global business spanning the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, and France — serving thousands of customers and employing more than 360 people.

Cash flow positive from day one - was our engine for growth

As founder, Rud led the company through the full arc of building, scaling, and ultimately selling it in 2011. The proceeds from that sale are the funds Ryanna Capital invests today — which is why the firm partners with entrepreneurs the way it does: as people who have built and sold a company themselves, and who have personally experienced the challenges founders face.

Track record

Past

Since the 2011 sale of Ryzex, we have reinvested that capital in entrepreneurs who pair commercial promise with environmental and social benefit. Together, these investments reflect what we look for in every partnership: committed teams pursuing genuine economic and environmental returns at the same time. Some examples are:

Environmental sector

Membrion

Ceramic-membrane technology for treating and recycling toxic industrial wastewater.

ioCurrents

An analytics platform helping marine and industrial operators run more efficiently and cut fuel use.

PypeServer

Precision software that reduces material waste in industrial cutting and fabrication.

BuildPulse

Data and machine learning that cut energy waste in commercial buildings.

Beyond the environmental field

Elevate K-12

Live, high-quality instruction streamed into classrooms facing teacher shortages.

DesignMedix

A biotech company developing new treatments to overcome drug-resistant malaria.

Livible

On-demand, full-service storage built to make storage easier and less wasteful for urban households.

Allotrope Medical

A surgical-technology platform that helps surgeons work more safely and precisely.

Recent focus

Recent

Our most recent project is Dudmaston LLC (www.4PW.us), a pilot program to address the immense shortage of family homes and habitat by restoring damaged land for use as homes for both people and wildlife — former mine sites, neglected farms, and properties cluttered with derelict buildings, abandoned vehicles, and pollutants. Dudmaston rehabilitates them by cleaning up the habitat, restoring or creating clustered family housing close to existing infrastructure, and delivering measurable ecological uplift.

The model is deliberately dual-purpose: by tightly concentrating new homes on a small fraction of each property (often less than 5 percent), the firm preserves the balance of the land as protected open space, farmland, forestry, or restored wetlands — and the wetland-mitigation credits it generates can then be applied to enable affordable, high-density housing in urban growth areas where mitigation would otherwise be a barrier to construction.

Pilot Project Longford

3 starter homes · 5 new family homes

40-acre former farm · ~34 acres protected forever

Beside an impaired salmon stream, Longford proposes converting three existing residences into starter homes and adding five new family homes, while planting roughly 30,000 native trees and shrubs and restoring historical wetlands along Silver Creek.

Pilot Project Devernon

8 new family homes

85-acre former sand mine · ~80 acres protected forever

Devernon clusters eight new family homes on high ground away from sensitive wetlands and replaces a fish-barrier culvert with a bridge — 60 days later fish were found spawning more than a mile further upstream — alongside some 7,500 native trees and shrubs planted to buffer and cool the creek.

Dudmaston exemplifies the Ryanna Capital thesis in its purest form: a venture that pursues affordable housing, carbon sequestration, water-quality improvement, and wildlife-habitat restoration simultaneously — demonstrating that economic and environmental returns can be achieved together rather than traded off against one another.

What we are looking for now

Current (AI)

Our initial work with Artificial Intelligence has convinced us AI has tremendous potential to help solve some of the world's most pressing environmental problems. If you have an AI-enabled opportunity you believe can have a positive social or environmental impact that meets our criteria below - please contact us.

01
A great ideaUsing AI to solve an important problem that has a positive social, environmental and economic impact.
02
A great teamCommitted and passionate about what it is trying to accomplish.
03
A need for capital — and a partnerHelp with sales, marketing, finance, IT systems, operations, or cash-flow management.
04
Ambition to expandPlans to grow sales and operations into domestic and foreign markets.

The founder

Founder

Rud Browne

Founder

Rud founded Ryzex in 1989 and built it over two decades into a global mobile-technology business across five countries, funded entirely by internally generated cash flow. He sold the company in 2011 — and those proceeds are the capital Ryanna Capital invests today.

Having walked the full path from start-up to exit, he partners with founders not as a lawyer, accountant, or consultant, but as a fellow entrepreneur who has navigated the same challenges they now face.

Individual Honors

2007 Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award
Whatcom County Councilmember (elected twice)

Executive Leadership

YPO, Pacific Northwest Chapter (Past Chairman)
YPO Gold, Pacific Northwest & Toronto
Entrepreneurs Organization, Vancouver, BC (Past VP Ethics)

Ryzex Recognized For

Inc. Magazine: #2 Green Business in the USA
WA State Best Places to Work

Get in touch

Building a business that makes money and a difference?

If you're growing a company that delivers both economic prosperity and environmental sustainability, we'd like to hear from you.