From Formation to Scale

His approach to building starts with getting founders in front of as many customers as possible, often well before the company exists. He learned this approach as a founder breaking into an unfamiliar industry. An engineer by training who worked on complex devices like Microsoft HoloLens and data center hardware at Google and Facebook, Ryan had to earn his place in the construction industry when he co-founded Kojo. He knows how hard it is to land your first customer conversations as an outsider, and today he guides founders with the same approach he took: Immerse yourself in the industry with the people who know it best. 

Ryan’s strategy is simple in theory but demanding in practice. For Bedrock Robotics, he tapped the Rolodex he had built at Kojo so the team could learn the industry from people who had run it for decades. That meant more than 50 conversations before the company was formed: Walking job sites with project managers, a red-eye to Boston for a full day on site with one of the biggest general contractors in the United States, and cold outreach to a Bay Area developer that became Bedrock’s first test site. With Peak Energy, that meant flying to northern Sweden with Eclipse Partner Aidan Madigan-Curtis to tour battery factories and understand customers’ needs. For Mytra, he drove hours with the founder to spend a day inside a large logistics company, learning the business well enough to see how new technology could improve their bottom line without disrupting their workflow. 

Ryan sees everything a company can become and brings an industriousness only a former can. He sources, recruits, and vets technical co-founders himself, and he’s direct about what makes a design partnership work: Build the right product, align incentives with the customer’s risk, and be honest about timelines. That’s why founders want him in their corner. Because the work demands immense focus, conviction, and craft, Eclipse only takes on a few such builds each year.  

Michael often sees the opportunity for a new company in the constraints of an existing one. Since joining Eclipse in 2025, he has developed new business models with portfolio founders and negotiated the commercial partnerships to put them into practice. Ahead of a portfolio company’s IPO, he identified a financing need and led the design and execution of a credit facility to address it.

He is also building two new Eclipse companies alongside their founders and developing a third, all in stealth. He works with founders to shape business models and assemble the strategic relationships and financing needed to launch. His understanding of scale informs the earliest decisions about what a company should own, where it should partner and how it should grow.

Michael began investing over a decade ago at Coatue, across public and private markets. He then co-founded Second Avenue, a vertically integrated real estate investment and technology company. From inception through exit, he raised and deployed $1 billion, built the technology platform and scaled the operating business to more than 250 people.

AI infrastructure is a major focus today, from land and construction to the systems that turn power into compute. He develops financing strategies for companies and major infrastructure projects, recognizing when assets can support dedicated financing and preserving venture equity for the work that still requires it.A former professional tennis player, Michael brings a competitor’s determination and a founder’s sense of ownership to his work. We value his independent judgment and his willingness to work alongside founders through hard problems.

Every Partner at Eclipse brings a unique background, network, and skill set, but we share one belief: Companies in physical sectors are deliberately constructed. The choices made at formation shape what can be financed, built, and delivered years later. A founder isn’t starting a company as an option bet, and neither should the investors who back them. That’s why Eclipse isn’t a team of asset allocators, but one of architects building the next generation of the essential economy. 

If you’re building in a physical industry, you shouldn’t have to find a new partner each time your constraint changes. Whether you’re still defining the market, signing your first design partner, or working out how to finance your first large deployment, our team has built and backed through it.

Please join us in congratulating Ryan and Michael!

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