Welcoming Espa to the Harlem Capital Portfolio

We’re proud to announce our investment in Espa, the AI teammate built by Deon Nicholas to democratize executive support and bring it to everyone.

Deon is a repeat founder who has already built at the frontier. He co-founded and scaled Forethought from zero to over $100M raised, 1 billion monthly interactions, and a successful acquisition. Along the way, he saw what most operators learn the hard way: the highest-performing leaders aren’t superhuman, they just have exceptional teams behind them. Espa is his bet that the same agentic AI transforming the enterprise can work just as powerfully for individuals.

Espa is an AI assistant that actually finishes the work. It integrates with Google or Outlook, Slack, and tools like Granola, and takes on the scheduling, inbox management, and follow-ups that quietly eat your week. Where most AI tools draft and hand the work back, Espa closes the loop. It’s also privacy-first by design, with no training on your data and a memory architecture you fully control.

Deon is exactly the kind of founder we back: technical, hyperfluent, magnetic, and operating with the conviction to build something generational. He’s already done it once and is going all the way again. We’re excited to support him, and the rest of the Espa team on what comes next.

Try Espa today at https://www.espa.ai