FOUNDER
Who is Shahar Dagan?

Shahar Dagan is an Entrepreneurs First founder building a highly ambitious, long‑term company in the commodities space. He is intensely focused, anti‑complacency, and strongly oriented toward building something “substantial over a very long period of time.”

Background and origin story

Shahar grew up on a farm in Israel, surrounded by people who built their own companies and businesses. He notes that “no one had a normal job, no one worked for anyone else but themselves,” and he knew from around age 10 that he wanted to build in Silicon Valley.

Experiences that led him to entrepreneurship

• Being immersed in an environment of self‑employed builders from childhood wired him to see company‑building as the default.

• Later, he moved to the UK for about seven years, where he experienced a slower, more conservative culture that clashed with his instinct for speed, intensity, and disruption. This friction sharpened his sense of what kind of environment he needed to build in.

Key moments that shaped Shahar’s worldview

• Growing up in a community of founders created a deep, early conviction that entrepreneurship was his path.

• Living in the UK convinced him that, if you want to build aggressively and move fast, certain ecosystems will hold you back; that pushed him toward the US and more ambitious environments—like San Francisco.

• Connecting with his Danish co‑founder, Sebastian Hein Bitsch —who also rejected the slow, complacent European mentality and was willing to “leave everything behind” to build something big—cemented his life‑long commitment to working on one large, enduring company.

COMPANY
What is Rencom?

Shahar is building Rencom, an AI‑native replacement for legacy commodity trading and risk management (CTRM) systems that sit at the core of global commodity logistics.

What problem does the product solve?

Global trade in raw materials—energy, metals, minerals, food, grains, sugar, coffee—is coordinated by commodity traders who own and orchestrate the full stack from mines to processing plants.

The logistics are extremely complex, with hundreds of stakeholders and moving parts. Existing CTRM systems are outdated, on‑premise, clunky, and error‑prone, leading to trades going wrong because the core system of record is broken.

Core insight behind the Rencom business idea

The world’s physical commodities system “literally holds the world and makes it move,” yet its digital infrastructure is decades behind.

In such a complex, multi‑stakeholder environment, you either have AI managing the orchestration or you need an “army of humans.” That gap between complexity and tooling is the opportunity.

Differentiation vs. existing alternatives

Rencom positions itself as the AI‑native CTRM system: cloud‑age, automation‑first infrastructure for physical commodity trading and logistics, in contrast to the 30‑year‑old, on‑prem systems that “look terrible, feel terrible,” and cause operational errors.

PROBLEM & SOLUTION

Specific problem identified

• Logistics for global commodity trade is highly complex with “hundreds of stakeholders at any given time.”

• Existing CTRM systems are old, on‑premise, and poorly designed—core trades can “go wrong because of these systems.”

How Rencom’s solution uniquely addresses this

• Rencom aims to be the AI‑native operating layer for physical commodity logistics—using AI to manage and automate the complexity that would otherwise require large human operations.

• Instead of just digitizing workflows, the system is designed to automate and coordinate the logistics stack at scale.

GROWTH STRATEGY

How Shahar’s thinking about GTM / customer acquisition

Rencom is not focused on building in public for awareness; their buyers “don’t care” about X or LinkedIn. Instead, they rely on warm introductions:

• Warm intros are very efficient as a go‑to‑market machine built on existing connections in the industry.

• These intros lead to getting the right consultants and stakeholders involved early to penetrate large enterprises.

More GTM insights

The Rencom GTM function is relationship‑driven and enterprise‑oriented, optimized around industry networks and stakeholders rather than broad audience marketing.

IDEAL CUSTOMER PROFILE (ICP)

Who is the product for?

Physical commodity trading companies

What types of users or companies benefit most?

Specifically, companies with >$500M in revenue / working capital operating in physical commodities and managing complex logistics across many stakeholders.

Pain points / behaviors that define the ICP

• High operational complexity in logistics and trading

• Reliance on outdated, on‑prem CTRM systems

• Exposure to errors and inefficiencies in trade execution and risk management due to poor systems of record

WHERE DO YOU SEE RENCOM IN THE FUTURE?

Where Shahar sees Rencom in one year

In one year, Shahar sees Rencom as an “essential and integral part of the logistics stack” for any important company in the commodity trading industry.

Long‑term ambition and direction

Shahar and his co‑founder, Sebastian, have committed their entire lives to building “something substantial over a very long period of time.” Their ambition is to be the core infrastructure layer for global commodity logistics—not a point solution.

Bigger mission / global economic impact

The physical backbone of the world’s economy (commodities and logistics) is run on archaic systems, and upgrading this foundation with AI is both a massive economic opportunity and a necessary modernization.

Rencom’s mission is to be the AI infrastructure that actually runs world trade logistics.

TL;DR

Shahar is the founder of Rencom, an AI‑native CTRM platform modernizing the outdated systems that physical commodity traders rely on by automating the complex logistics that keep global trade moving.

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