Discipulus Ventures is an El Segundo, California-based pre-seed venture firm founded by Jakob Diepenbrock. The firm backs the earliest-stage founders building hardware, defense technology, energy, manufacturing, mining, and critical infrastructure for America. Discipulus operates a cohort residency model, relocating promising founders to El Segundo and running them through an intensive in-person program embedded in one of the densest hardware and defense-tech clusters in the country. The firm has run five cohorts under its inaugural $9M fund, and closed a $30M oversubscribed second fund in June 2026.
Discipulus backs pre-seed founders tackling large, physical problems in defense, energy, manufacturing, mining, and critical industries,. sectors that require hands-on proximity to suppliers, test facilities, and defense customers.
The firm targets founders building hardware, dual-use technologies, and deep tech systems that strengthen American industrial and national security capacity. Sector-agnostic within hardtech, it explicitly avoids software-only startups.
Discipulus Ventures closed an oversubscribed $30M fund in June 2026, its second vehicle, following a $9M debut fund used to run five cohorts.
Reported LPs include Anduril founder Palmer Luckey and Coinbase founder Brian Armstrong, alongside additional undisclosed investors.
Leadership
Jakob Diepenbrock is Founder and General Partner, 22 years old at the time of the second fund close. He gained early investing experience through Steve Ballmer's family office before relocating to El Segundo to build Discipulus around the region's hardware and defense ecosystem.
Augustus Doricko serves as Venture Partner; he is himself the founder of cloud-seeding startup Rainmaker.
Investment Strategy
Discipulus pairs pre-seed capital with an intensive El Segundo residency, relocating founders into a cohort environment embedded in the Gundo hardware cluster.
The model gives founders proximity to machinists, defense primes, aerospace suppliers, and peer builders, compressing years of relationship-building into a single cohort cycle. Advisors include Kevin Hartz, Josh Steinman, Ben Kohlmann, and Isaiah Taylor, extending the firm's reach into defense, deep tech, and American Dynamism operator networks.
The firm is explicitly mission-coded, targeting founders motivated by national-interest problems over market-map trends.
Notable Investments
United States
