Code & State is a
venture builder.
We start companies with founders and build alongside them: product, engineering and go-to-market, from nothing to a company in market.
We build, not advise.
Engineers and operators in the work with you, writing the code, shipping the product, finding the first customers. Not a monthly check-in and a deck of suggestions.
It stays your company.
You are the founder and you run the company. We take a minority stake, and in every deal we have done the founder has kept the majority. We have to earn it, the same way you do.
Nothing starts from zero.
Every company we start inherits the infrastructure, the playbooks and the expensive lessons of the one before it. Each one begins further ahead than the last.
Companies we started, built and shipped.
Marbling
One engine for building companies, in five parts: Airmond, Tartare, Latch, Arena and Metal. Now its own company.
Mandarina
Booking and payments for appointment businesses in Mexico: salons, spas, dental clinics.
Payslice
Earned wage access. Employees draw the pay they have already worked for, before payday.
Mirage
Privacy for stablecoin payments and payroll. Pay people without putting every transfer on a public ledger.
Moltbank
Banking rebuilt for software that acts on its own behalf, rather than for a person with a login.
Fondu
Business banking for stablecoin-native companies: transfers, approvals and policy in one place.
Fondu, Moltbank and Mandarina are one lineage: the same founding team, twice re-aimed at a sharper problem.
Also built
2022 – 2024An earlier chapter, in the Internet Computer ecosystem.
- Motoko BootcampDeveloper bootcamp and alumni network.
- Solid StateSmart-contract auditing agency.
- ICP.CCThe ecosystem's flagship conference.
Two founders. Both have built and sold companies before.
Cédric Waldburger
Founder25 years of founding companies. Started Mediasign in 2001 and sold it in 2018, having built Sendtask along the way. Co-founder and founding board member of DFINITY. Founder and general partner at Tomahawk.VC, where he invests in early-stage founders. Electrical engineering, ETH Zurich.
Artia Moghbel
Co-founderFormer chief operating officer of DFINITY, where he and Cédric met. Co-founded Overnight, a spontaneous-travel app that raised a $2.5M seed, and the Draft Ventures fund. Earlier: SchoolRack, and the venture team at Greycroft. Operations research, Columbia.
Backed byWarburg Serres·KR1
What does Code & State actually do?
We start companies with founders and build them alongside you: product, engineering, design and the first go-to-market. In practice that means our people are in the work every week, writing code and talking to customers, rather than reviewing your progress once a month.
Who is this for?
Founders right at the start. You have conviction about a problem, maybe a first version, and you do not yet have the team to build it properly. If you already have a full team and a raised round, you probably do not need us.
What do you take?
A minority stake. You are the founder, you hold the majority, and you run the company. We are betting on you rather than buying the thing.
What do you want to see before we talk?
Nothing formal. A few sentences about what you are building and where you are stuck is enough. We would rather read your thinking than a deck.
Do you invest without building?
No. Building alongside you is the whole point. If what you want is capital on its own, Tomahawk.VC is the fund and it is a separate conversation.
Weren't you building a hundred companies with AI agents?
That engine became its own company, Marbling. Code & State is the venture builder: fewer companies, built properly, with founders who own them.
Building something?
Let's build it together.
Tell us what you are working on, or what you would work on if you had a team behind you. A human reads every one of these.
Would rather just email? info@codeandstate.com