Our fund is building a robust ecosystem to support founders with a hands-on, value-add approach to venture capital at the early-stage.
We invest in enterprise software, creator tools, and developer tools (Web 2.0 and Web 3.0).
We know what it takes to get from idea to venture-backed and eventually to a successful exit. It’s a long, hard journey that few investors can empathize with. After witnessing the lack of support other capital providers were failing to offer entrepreneurs as operators ourselves, we made it our mission to fill this gap in the market for the next generation of founders.
Matt Cohen founded Ripple Ventures in 2018 after leaving a successful career in institutional finance. Matt was the founding investor of a Toronto based early-stage startup called Turnstyle Solutions. From the early days at Turnstyle, Matt helped bring this idea to life and worked closely with the founders helping with everything from building desks in their first office, to hiring, and helping them navigate sales strategies with customers.
Though the company did raise some angel capital, Matt saw a gap in the early-stage ecosystem where founders needed more than capital to succeed. They needed guidance, an extensive network, and learnings from past experiences to mitigate any potential mistakes in operating. What was initially an idea from the Turnstyle founders, turned into a 50-person company that was eventually acquired by Yelp in 2017.
Shortly after this experience, Matt went on to work and live in Boston at a fintech startup, selling enterprise software solutions to the top financial institutions in the world.
After returning home from Boston, Matt built up a successful angel portfolio with significant exits including Turnstyle, Tokyo Smoke and others. Given the performance of these angel investments, family offices and high-net worth investors in Matt’s network supported him to launch Ripple Ventures in 2018.
The fund was founded to support entrepreneurs through the hardest part of company building at the early-stage. Everything from go-to-market strategies, to hiring, to sales processes, and quantifying product market fit. Matt’s goal with this firm was to share his past experiences from operating and investing with early-stage companies, giving them more than just capital to succeed.
With our 'Operators-First' approach, we work with companies every day, not just every quarter at the board meeting. Our firm’s platform is designed to help startups with support from an extensive advisor network to act as an extension of management teams every step of the way.