A new category of capital

Founders building before their first dollar of revenue have three established paths, and each has a real limit. Bootstrapping depends on personal capital and runs out before most businesses are built. Venture capital increasingly requires revenue before it will engage. Private equity requires the cash flows and scale that a pre-revenue company doesn’t yet have.

Formative capital is what Former built for the space those structures leave behind: a single capital commitment, sized to carry a company from a validated idea to its earliest stage of revenue, paired with the embedded operational leadership of Former’s founding partners from the point of investment.

Former holds its position in each company for as long as the partnership continues to create value, whether that ends in a strategic acquisition or an indefinitely profitable business generating returns for everyone who built it. There’s no fixed timeline that requires a particular outcome.

That permanence changes how the partnership works in practice. Growth happens at the pace the business can sustain, with profitability prioritized over speed. Former and the founder build a durable, profit-first company together.

Formative capital requires something most early-stage investors are not equipped to provide: people who can embed directly into a company at formation and carry real operational responsibility through the decisions that determine its trajectory. That takes range across functions and industries, the experience of having been accountable for outcomes, and the judgment to know what a first-time founder needs and when.

Jae Hwang and Diego Kolsky have built that profile over careers spanning global consultancies, investment platforms, and practices they built themselves. They’ve worked with Fortune 500 companies and early-stage startups alike, across multiple industries and geographies, including founders navigating the same formation period Former now invests in. This is their third partnership together.