Tangible, a fintech platform aimed at helping hardtech businesses access and manage structured debt, has secured $4.3 million in a seed funding round as it seeks to modernise capital deployment for asset-heavy companies. The round was led by Pale Blue Dot and included participation from MMC, Future Positive Capital, Unruly, SDAC, Prototype Capital, and Aperture. Tangible plans to use the funding to expand its team and enhance automation across its platform.
Hardtech companies, spanning sectors such as energy, transport, advanced manufacturing, and compute infrastructure, are increasingly viewed as essential for addressing major global economic and technological challenges. BlackRock estimates that $68 trillion of new infrastructure investment will be needed by 2040 to meet worldwide demand.
Despite the growing importance of physical innovation, financing remains a significant hurdle. Traditional venture capital often struggles to support companies with high upfront capital requirements, forcing many early-stage hardtech businesses to rely on equity funding. This can increase ownership dilution and, in some cases, threaten long-term viability.
Private credit, now a $3.5 trillion market, has the potential to meet these financing needs. Yet deploying debt efficiently into hardtech remains complicated, with lenders facing resource-intensive processes that rely on bespoke documentation and manual workflows.
Tangible’s platform was created to address these challenges. It standardises data, documentation, and reporting requirements for lenders, reducing underwriting time and costs. The platform also allows founders to manage structured debt facilities without the need to build in-house finance teams.
Hampus Jakobson, general partner at Pale Blue Dot, said, “Most of the innovations shaping the future, from vehicles and data centres to robotics, are fundamentally physical, and they shouldn’t be financed by venture equity alone. Tangible opens up new financing options for hardtech businesses, and we strongly believe in the team’s vision to bridge this structural gap.”
William Godfrey, co-founder and CEO of Tangible, added that demand for physical assets is accelerating as governments and businesses push reindustrialisation, energy security, and technological sovereignty. “As hardtech companies scale at speed, investors need modern infrastructure to deploy capital just as fast,” he said. “Legacy processes based on bespoke documentation and manual coordination no longer cut it. Tangible provides the financial infrastructure that makes hardtech easier to diligence for institutional credit, allowing companies to raise asset-backed financing faster and with less friction.”
The company said the funding would be used to further automate collaboration, diligence, and reporting workflows, reducing transaction costs and shortening time-to-close for both founders and lenders. For hardtech firms facing mounting capital pressures, Tangible positions debt as a viable alternative to heavy equity dilution or the risk of failure.
