Vetted creatives and operators enabling the commercialization of deep tech solutions.
How we operate
And how it translates to better engagements.
A system for signal processing
Modeled after
Independent Operators
The Koru Collective is a vetted group of operators, not a roster. Each member is someone we've worked with, learned from, or watched build. They bring deep, specific expertise across design, engineering, strategy, and storytelling, and they're brought into projects ad hoc to match the exact shape of what each client needs.
Deep tech focus
Deep tech is where the most consequential problems are being worked on, and where the gap between what's built and what's understood is widest. We focus here because the founders solving these problems deserve brand and narrative work that matches the rigor of the science, and because closing that gap is how technical breakthroughs become cultural and commercial momentum.
Designed for growth
Clients get senior talent without the overhead of a traditional agency. By assembling small teams of specialists who are already operating at the frontier of their craft, and unlocked further by modern AI workflows, we deliver faster and more sharply than the layered account teams and middle management of legacy shops. The result is more output, higher caliber, less friction.
Koru Purpose Philosophy
Bring together highly capable problem solvers from every corner and industry we’ve touched to empower the builders solving The Challenge of our lifetime:
Keep the planet from overheating
By backing the progress that solves climate
The Koru Collective
Vetted contributors assembled around each deep tech engagement, bringing exactly what the project requires. Members represent expertise in narrative, design, engineering, and the relationships that unlock commercial viability.
Hailey Kragelj
Head of Strategic Narrative
Viviana Rames
Deep Tech GTM Consultant
Viviana Rames helps climate and deep tech founders turn complex ideas into stories people can understand, trust, and act on. Her work blends strategic storytelling, positioning, and go-to-market thinking to connect technical innovation with human relevance and commercial momentum. She is drawn to Koru’s belief that breakthrough technologies need more than invention alone: they need clear narratives, shared belief, and the momentum to succeed in the world.
Rose Robinson
Strategic Design, Parsons
Justin Morris-Marano
Co-director, External Affairs
Owen Myers
Program Coordinator, GiveBackHack
Owen builds and advocates for technology that solves pressing human needs. As GiveBackHack, he advises a community of dozens of founders starting and responsibly growing technology companies in healthcare, sustainability, and government. His own products have raised more than $1M. Koru represents a natural extension of Owen's love for the craft of product-building into brand.
Kelsea D. Macnamara
Independent Designer
Kelsea is a multi-faceted designer with experience across international lifestyle markets. She brings an all-encompassing approach to design by bringing together tactile, digital, historical and cultural inspirations to UX/UI design, branding, editorial and graphic design. Kelsea brings a wide-lens and strategic view to design having worked in sales, project management and retail coordination.
Nick Giammarco
Independent Designer
Nick Giammarco is a graphic designer fueled by curiosity and craft. He specializes in brand identity and type design, creating systems that feel sharp, expressive, and thoughtfully dynamic. Equal parts designer and creative thinker, Nick approaches every project with care, intention, and just the right amount of caffeine. Working with the Koru Collective felt like a natural choice, rooted in a shared belief that creativity can be a force for community, connection, and change.
Tamir Yankevich
Founder, Koru Studio
Tamir Yankevich, Founder of Koru, cut his teeth in electrical engineering, a discipline that teaches you to seek the elegant path through complexity, trusting that a solution exists. That technical lens became a philosophy. That philosophy became Koru.
Eli Kia
General Partner, Fortify Ventures
Eli is a General Partner at Fortify Ventures, where he helps build and manage the fund across sourcing, diligence, portfolio construction, and co-investor relationships. He brings deep experience in early stage venture, consumer health, and the practical mechanics of turning ambitious ideas into durable companies. He is especially drawn to projects where technical insight, founder empathy, and community building all matter, including through Distilled Intelligence, Fortify's annual summit for founders and investors. Koru's mission resonates with him because he believes the strongest outcomes come from trusted networks of builders, operators, and investors working together.
Jackson Fall
Independent Designer
Tony Alva
Brand Strategy
Shawn Rolph
Founder, Copycat NYC
Cut from the cloth of those that believe stories are what holds the stars together, Shawn has built a NYC agency, ecosystem, and career on a single premise—that narrative isn’t the framing; it’s the strategy. He plans to bring the same waltz and framework to Koru.
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Koru Statement of Purpose
Bring together highly capable problem solvers from every corner and industry we’ve touched to empower the builders solving The Challenge of our lifetime:
Keep the planet from overheating.
Before irreversible second order effects kick in.
Along the way, produce media, events and projects that at their core take us from the place of destitution we are in, to the one of hope we will need to be in to solve this challenge.
Purposeful action through
Backing deep tech
The companies solving the climate challenge are often the hardest to understand. Deep tech founders are working at the frontier of science and engineering, and the gap between what they've built and what the world can grasp is where momentum gets lost. We close that gap.
Cultivating credibility
Technical missions deserve brands that match the rigor of the work. We translate complex science into clear, confident identities so that founders are taken seriously by the audiences who need to believe in them: investors, partners, talent, and press.
Platforming the builders
Great work doesn't speak for itself. We produce the media, events, and digital experiences that put deep tech founders in front of the people who can move their work forward, and reconnect a broader audience to what's possible on these frontiers.
Enabling action
The cultural arc we care about is the shift from despair to hope to action. By facilitating the relationships between founders, funders, and the talent that supports them, we turn belief into the conditions that let real progress compound.
If you're looking to go from
Theoretically Interesting
Commercially Inevitable
No more confused, empty-stare interactions on sales calls and pitches.