Mat Sherman built MatCap after spending four years as an outsider founder in Phoenix failing to raise his first check, designing his fund specifically to solve that pain for other overlooked founders outside major hubs. He runs MatCap as a builder-GP who spends most of his time operating programs like incubators and sprints rather than just writing checks, while using his long-standing Forward Thinking podcast and newsletter as his core sourcing engine instead of relying on traditional VC networks.

• An alternative funding model that trades a small amount of company equity for access to high quality investor introductions instead of direct cash investments. The primary goal is to help early stage founders secure initial funding while protecting their ownership structures. For example, a recent initiative introduced a two week trial period so founders can evaluate the value of these networking connections before officially committing to giving up any equity.
• Focused heavily on the necessity of warm introductions and social proof when navigating the fundraising landscape. The underlying belief is that startup fundraising relies primarily on insider validation rather than just having a good idea. This is highlighted by data shared regarding their own networking efforts, showing that leveraging a trusted intermediary yields an introduction acceptance rate of nearly a quarter, which vastly outperforms standard cold outreach.
• A geographic preference for the Phoenix area and a general bias toward in person interactions. Evaluating founders face to face is considered much more effective than remote meetings. As a result, founders living outside the Phoenix region face a higher barrier to securing a meeting, while local founders benefit from regional events like exclusive retreats hosted locally on Camelback Mountain.
• Acting as a strict quality filter to solve the evaluation problem in venture capital. The perspective is that the market does not suffer from a lack of investors, but rather a lack of reliable ways to identify strong founders. To fix this, the firm focuses on vetting unknown founders and passing the best ones to a curated list of active investors who specifically trust this signal, effectively managing the overwhelming volume of standard cold emails.