INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Matchstick Ventures, a seed-stage firm that says it invests in &rapidly growing, yet underserved startup ecosystems,& announced this week
that it has raised $30 million for its second fund.
That a lot more money than the firm $5 million seed round
This time, Matchstick says it will write initial checks of around $500,000, and in some cases make follow-on investments of $1 million or $2
million.
The firm partners, Ryan Broshar and Natty Zola, are based in Minneapolis-St Paul
and Boulder, respectively, and they said the underserved ecosystems they&re focused on include ''the North, the Rockies, and companies
across the Techstars ecosystem.& This is the first fund Matchstick has raised since Zola (the co-founder of Everlater, acquired by our
parent company AOL) joined as a partner last year.
And even though Broshar and Zola only recently closed and announced the fund, they&ve
already used it to make a number of investments, backing Onward (San Francisco), Soona (Denver), Upsie (Minneapolis), Pana (Denver) and
Ordermark (Los Angeles).
The investors in the fund include Foundry Group, which discussed the relationship between the two firms in a blog
post:
We&ve co-invested and served on boards with them and [Foundry Group Managing Director] Seth Levine has been an official advisor to
Matchstick since inception
As we&ve gotten to know Natty and Ryan, we&ve also seen the ecosystems in which they operate — the North and the Rockies — begin to
really thrive and gain momentum … We believe great companies can be built anywhere and are excited about Matchstick opportunity to
leverage Natty and Ryan positions within their respective communities to partner with incredible founders and build their firm.
