For Founders

Helping Founders Build Stronger Industrial Companies

We work with founders across complex, technical, and industrial sectors, providing the operators, boards, capital, and operational infrastructure required to materially improve the odds of success.

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Why We Exist

Most Industrial Startups Fail, Not Because of of the idea or tech

Founders working in complex industries face challenges others don’t: long sales cycles, technical depth, regulatory barriers, and high-stakes decisions. And too often, they face it alone.

These companies don’t fail because the technology is weak, they fail because founders must simultaneously sell into conservative industries, navigate regulation, build commercial muscle, hire senior talent they can’t yet afford, and make irreversible decisions with limited context. The gap isn’t ambition; it’s access to experience.

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How We Work

A Smarter Way to Support Founders

We combine research, industry depth, and clear execution frameworks to support founders in complex sectors and engineering-heavy environments.

See How We Can Help

Industry First, Not Generic Advice

We work with operators who know hard-tech, not generalists. Maritime, ocean, energy, and supply chain - people who’ve actually built in these environments and understand the real execution challenges.

Structured Execution, Not Opinions

No loose advice or coffee-chat mentorship. We use a clear execution model with defined roles, milestones, and accountability - so founders get progress, not noise.

Science-Backed, Not Hype

Our work is grounded in research and data. We study governance, founder dynamics, and execution frameworks so decisions are made on evidence, not hype.

Values That Shape How We Operate

We operate on clarity, honesty, and respect. No ego, no games — just aligned incentives and long-term thinking founders can trust.

What You Can Do

Four Ways We Support Industrial and Deep-Tech Founders

Who We Are

A Collective Built Around Real-World Experience

We’re a team of founders, operators, and industry specialists who’ve built in complex, industrial environments. OPERATORS brings that experience together into one collective, giving founders access to people who understand execution, not just theory.

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    Nicklas V. Fursund

    Founder & CEO

    Serial entrepreneur with 25+ years of experience in maritime, energy, and supply chain.

    Started with a corporate career leading business units, then moved to the strategy office, global fuel reduction, and MD of Regional Operations in MAERSK.

    Built startups, made mistakes, learned, and grew into helping others succeed.

    Partner at RAINMAKING, where we invested in 950+ startups and helped them scale. Co-founded Motion Ventures, a VC fund backed by industrials.

    Worked with 50+ industry corporations on innovation. Former advisor to BCG, McKinsey, and Kearney.

    Educated at Wharton, IMD, CBS, and INSEAD, with three board certificates - most recently in board leadership from DTU (Technical University).

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  • A man with a beard and tousled hair wearing a light blue button-up shirt, standing in front of a wooden and textured wall background.

    Rasmus Borgstrøm

    Partner of OceanTech

    Innovation leader and startup growth advisor working across ocean, climate, and frontier technology.

    Built and led ventures, shaped corporate innovation, and supported founders in achieving funding, product validation, and commercial traction. Learned as much from setbacks as from the wins, shaping a hands-on and grounded approach to advising founders.

    Former CEO of a satellite-powered geospatial scaleup and VP of DHI’s Innovation Lab. Holds DTU’s startup board education and maintains strong ties across the blue investor and innovation landscape.

    Committed to accelerating technologies that deliver measurable climate and ocean impact.

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  • A man wearing glasses and a light shirt stands with arms crossed, smiling slightly, against a plain light background.

    David Lusztig

    Venture Partner

    Commercial–technical operator with 15+ years across SaaS, PaaS, maritime tech, fintech, and enterprise software in regulated digital markets.

    Started in high-performance commercial environments across EMEA and APAC, progressing from media buyer to leading revenue, GTM, and product–commercial functions in fast-scaling SaaS/PaaS organizations.

    Built, funded, and exited multiple ventures, gaining end-to-end founder experience and applying those lessons to help startups achieve traction, validation, and scalable sales systems.

    Served as Executive Director of Diize BV, a corporate spinoff backed by Wilhelmsen Port Services AS and Royal Vopak NV, leading commercial strategy, GTM redesign, product–market alignment, investor engagement, and fundraising in maritime software.

    Works with founders, commercial teams, and corporate stakeholders to design GTM, pricing, revenue architecture, and enterprise sales engines across complex and regulated industries.

    Educated in Business (IUPUI, USA), Law (University of Miskolc, Hungary), and Full-Stack Web Development, with negotiation training from Harvard Business School.

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  • Portrait of a young man with short brown hair, wearing a white dress shirt and navy blazer, against a gray background.

    Vasily Ryabov

    Partnership & Research Associate

    Vasily works at the intersection of SaaS, maritime innovation, and international development.

    He spent three years working and travelling across West Africa on innovation and sustainable development projects, and later helped deliver European-led initiatives focused on practical implementation rather than policy slides. That field experience still shapes how he thinks about constraints, incentives, and what it actually takes to make change stick.

    He has worked in both technical and humanitarian organisations – from Microsoft to the Danish Refugee Council – giving him a broad, grounded view of how governments, corporates, NGOs, and startups each approach risk, funding, and decision-making. That mix allows him to “translate” between very different stakeholders in complex projects.

    Today, he combines this perspective with his research at Denmark’s Technical University on how advisory boards actually work in practice. The gathered insights allow him to build solutions that make structured support measurable, comparable, and genuinely useful for founders who want to understand how to win.

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What Founders Say

Trusted by Founders Building High-Impact Companies

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    No large investment has ever given me product-market fit. I cannot possibly have all the competencies I need on payroll - I need sparring and help on demand from people who are financially incentivized like me.

    Ocean Tech Founder

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    It’s like a fund of time! Unlike anything else I’ve seen, giving me competence and market access on demand, while pushing the cost to exit.

    Maritime Founder

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    I guess working with individuals as Advisors is nothing new, but hard to get value from. To plug into a structured way of doing it as a complement to my Board, can give me the speed and ease to get results.

    Supply Chain Founder

Not Sure What You Need?

Let’s Figure It Out Together

If you're unsure whether you need a board member, an OPERATOR board, funding, or just sparring, tell us where you are. We’ll help you understand what makes the most sense for your situation.

Reach out directly via email:
Gaia@operatorscollective.io

Come and visit us:
Hojbro Plads 10, 1200, Copenhagen, Denmark