Achetez un café à Mat Sherman

My first company, PubLoft, was backed by Jason Calacanis in 2019 with a $100K check after we hit $24K MRR. Through his accelerator, I met dozens of active investors who became the foundation for the investor network I still work with today.

To further grow my network, I launched Forward Thinking Founders later in 2019, a podcast where I’ve interviewed over 900 early-stage founders and investors, often before they broke out. Notable guests include Laura Behrens Wu (Shippo, $150M+ raised), Alex Bouaziz (Deel, $690M+), Jack Altman (Lattice, $330M+), Kashish Gupta (Hightouch, $172M+), and Hunter Walk (Homebrew, formerly led Product at YouTube).‍

I joined Prenda in November of 2019 (YC S19) as the first growth hire when they had raised under $2M; by 2022, they’d raised $45M.

I founded Seedscout in 2020, a platform helping founders raise capital via curated warm intros. Seedscout facilitated intros that led to over $5M of direct investments to pre-seed founders, and contributed to over $200M in value creation. It had a global focus.

Locally, I’ve helped Arizona-based founders like Adam Laor (Sinatra), Josh Hsu (Legix), Danny Friday (Sail), Christie Kerner (My Little Mascara Club), Ana Tomboulian (Thoron), Christian LaRoasa (Rosotics), Hunter Bjork (ISA Industries), and Max Bregman (BreatheEV).

I mainly support founders by making targeted intros to investors, advising on how to capitalize on those intros, helping them get more of them, and preparing them to approach their next round when it’s time to raise again. Every founder mentioned here has had a Silicon Valley investor write them a check as a result of an introduction I made. Here’s what they’ve said:

“Mat and his network got me trained up on how to play the game of pattern matching, warm nodes, and charts and activating them simultaneously.” – Adam Laor

“Mat made multiple introductions to current investors of ours, who are great human beings, and have been strategic for our growth.” – Max Bregman

“Mat’s influence extends beyond funding; he has also provided invaluable advice and education on best practices pioneered by top-tier Silicon Valley firms and startups.” – Hunter Bjork

‍

Today, I run ad sales at Product Hunt, a Silicon Valley based startup backed by a16z and Sequoia, remotely from Phoenix Arizona. On the side, I advise and consult founders via Mat Capital. Get in touch by emailing me: [email protected]