§ 01
GROWTH MACHINES
Distribution, conversion, retention, pricing, and feedback loops. How companies turn motion into compounding.
DATA DOG · PHILOSOPHER
GROWTH · AI · OPS
R.A.E* APENA
✦ (RAY) | RAIMUNDO | RAYMOND | REY | REYNARD | OK I'M STOPPING HERE
I’m a 23-year-old builder designing AI, growth, and operating systems for companies moving from zero to scale. I left Cambridge to build and fund companies, after holding two scholarships and designing my own course across mathematical logic, law, and art history. Currently building in stealth across AI, physical infra and human experience.
GROWTHAIOPSBUILDSELLSCALEDATASYSTEMSPHYSICAL INFRASTRUCTURESTRANGE LOOPSGROWTHAIOPSBUILDSELLSCALEDATASYSTEMSPHYSICAL INFRASTRUCTURESTRANGE LOOPS
§ 01 — CURRENT§
CURRENT
STEALTH STARTUP
Founding Bricklayer (Operator). Building across AI/data systems, physical infrastructure, and human experience.
§ 01
GROWTH ENGINES
Distribution, conversion, retention, pricing, and feedback loops.
§ 02
DATA, ML & AI INFRA
Analytics, machine learning, internal tools, and decision systems.
§ 03
OPERATING SYSTEMS
Turning ambiguous company-building into repeatable execution.
§ 02 — EXPERIENCE§
XP
A partial log of technical, operating, and investing chapters. Reverse chronological as Hegel intended.
- FEB 2026 — NOW
STEALTH STARTUP
Founding Operator
London · San Francisco · Austin
- 2025 — 2026
Data / Growth / AI Stack—Full-stack engineering, analytics, machine learning; built AI & data stack, driving GTM and ops.
- 2025
Visiting Associate—Backing technical founders from inception. Backed by Reid Hoffman (LinkedIn), Patrick Collison (Stripe), and Demis Hassabis (Google DeepMind).
- 2025
Private Equity—Industrials & Defence; special situations and turnarounds. $75 – $150 million investments.
- 2024
Strategic Projects—AI, robotics, defence; incubations and strategic investments. Led strategic investment.
- 2022 — 2024
CUR8
Co-Founder / Fullstack Engineer—Built a cross-platform personalisation engine for user algorithmic sovereignty; led team of 7.
- 2021 — 2024
Full Scholar / Research / Investment Banking—Full Scholarship; Global Coding Challenge top ~0.5% out of 23,000+.
- 2021
Law, Art History & Philosophy—Double Scholarship (Credit Suisse, A&O Shearman); Dropped out to build.
§ 03 — INTERESTS§
SYSTEMS I CARE ABOUT
Four loops I keep returning to by building, breaking, and thinking inside.
§ 02
AI-NATIVE OPERATIONS
Workflows where software coordinates people, assets, decisions, and execution.
§ 03
PHYSICAL INFRA
Hotels, sleep, cities, real estate, logistics, and the built environments where technology becomes real.
§ 04
STRANGE LOOPS
Philosophy, cognitive science, neuroscience, taste, agency, and the odd ways minds build models of reality. Mostly curiosity. Occasionally useful.
§ 04 — ESSAYS§
WRITING
Essays on ambition, systems, institutions, technology, and the weird machinery underneath modern life.
§ 05 — LIBRARY§
LIBRARY
Books I actually remember I've read.
CURRENTLY READING
Politics / SystemsNon-Fic
Seeing Like a State
James C. Scott
WHAT I REMEMBER — Legibility is a state's superpower and its blindspot: reshape the world to be measurable and you lose the parts that mattered.
Science / FictionFiction
The MANIAC
Benjamín Labatut
WHAT I REMEMBER — Von Neumann as prophet and accelerant. A quiet warning about intelligence outrunning wisdom.
RECENTLY READ
CognitionNon-Fic
Gödel, Escher, Bach
Douglas Hofstadter
WHAT I REMEMBER — The book that named 'strange loops' — self-reference all the way down.
EngineeringNon-Fic
Skunk Works
Ben Rich
WHAT I REMEMBER — Small teams, hard problems, radical trust, and a lot of chalkboards.
Cities / PowerNon-Fic
The Power Broker
Robert Caro
WHAT I REMEMBER — How one operator with no elected office reshaped a city — and what that costs.
§ CONTACT
BUILDING ·
SELLING ·
SCALING?
LET'S TALK.
Especially if it involves hardware, HCI and brick & mortar ventures.
© 2026 RAYMOND AKOLA-EREWUNMI APENA
PHILOSOPHER | DATA DAWG