Rudy Ruano
Rudy Ruano is a venture investment partner at Western Technology Investment, a leading California investment firm in the acquisition finance space for the last four decades. Ruano has been with the company since 2011. Prior to joining Western Technology Investment, Ruano founded and worked in senior management positions for a number of technology startups, including iPIX, where Ruano served as Senior Vice President of Corporate Development.
About Rudy Ruano
Brief History
Rudy Ruano attended San Jose State University, where he received a BS in Finance and Economics. He remained in the area and is now based out of Palo Alto, California. After graduating, he worked in several positions at Intel Corporation, over a span of about five years, before setting out on his own as a venture capitalist. One of Ruano’s most successful ventures during this period was as the CEO of scanR Inc., a mobile scanning and data distribution service that raised over $18 million in funding over three rounds in the mid-2000s.
Remarkable Investments
Over more than forty years in business, Western Technology Investment has entered into more than 350 investment agreements, with more than 120 exits over that same span. Its portfolio is incredibly diverse, as is evidenced by the company’s investments in the past year alone. Of the two projects the company became the lead investor on, one was in the fintech space, and the other was regarding medical technology. The first, Bite Investments, provides SaaS to expand access to alternative investments. Western Technology Investment was the leading investor in Bite’s March 2022 seed round, where they achieved $5.8M, bringing the company to a total of $19.3 million raised. The other, NUE Life Health, is a mental wellness startup. Western Technology Investment provided debt financing to the company in April of 2022, which allowed them to achieve $23 million in Series A funding shortly after.
Rudy Ruano in the News
In August of 2022, a partner company of Western Technology Investment, Eguana Technologies Inc., received a significant investment from the ITOCHU Corporation. The investment, totaling around $25 million, will increase Eguana’s access to working capital, helping them to continue manufacturing energy storage systems and advanced power inverters. In tandem, Eguana Technologies Inc. has also decided to complete another tranche draw from Western Technology Investment, their second. In August of 2022 it was also announced that P10 Inc. had entered into an agreement to purchase all outstanding membership interests from Western Technology Investment in exchange for cash and stock considerations. Day to day operations at Western Technology Investment are not expected to change, so Ruano will remain in his current role.