Playing smart offence.

In this post by Giselle Melo, you’ll learn about Matr’s active investment strategy during an economic slowdown.

Seeing a silver lining against this gloomy backdrop can be challenging, and we cannot know how inflation will develop. But perspective is critical, and the path forward varies.

Some investors believe that the best time to invest is during a recession. “Camp Safe” holds back on investing. “Camp Smart” piles up capital in preparation to lead timely investment opportunities.

At Matr, we’re firmly in Camp Smart. We’re building relationships with top-tier founders, taking deeper dives into their businesses, and monitoring their progress.

We’re meeting with like-minded investors to build up capital until the timing and an opportunity combine to warrant an investment.

We believe that FinTech, HealthTech, ClimateTech, Cyber, AgriTech, Culturally-specific and Ecommerce ventures offer significant value going forward.

Secular trends are strong and founders growing companies in these spaces can build on strong fundamentals to take share from existing firms and industries, creating market leaders across all parts of the economy — and that is not going to stop. Digital transformation in these areas will continue.

Prior to joining Matr Ventures, these five fund advisors completed more than 150 investments.

Get to know each of them and where they fit within our CAMP SMART investment strategy and due diligence framework.

By investing in both late seed and Series A companies, we offer investors exposure to start-ups with high growth potential, as well as to those that have already experienced a degree of maturation and scale, reducing investor risk.

LATE SEED STAGE COMPANIES. We aim to commit 40% of the fund to investments in late seed-stage companies. We’ve been building relationships with revenue-generating startups led by founders who — because of their lived experiences and varied perspectives — understand the internal engine that enables their company to address an untapped market and scale. At times, that internal engine is a life-altering solution, a product that addresses a cultural nuance, a superior user experience for a giant old industry thirsty for innovation, a key to an unspoken health frustration … and so on. By focusing on underestimated founders, we’re examining areas where 95% of the venture capital industry isn’t even looking. We dig deep to understand why this founder is best suited to build this company at this time.

SERIES A COMPANIES. We aim to reserve 60% of the fund for follow-on or opportunistic series A investments. We’re building relationships with companies with unit economics as they are more likely to weather the storm and emerge as viable investment opportunities. Again, by zeroing in on underestimated founders, we’re looking for potential outsize gains where most of the venture capital industry has blinders on.

We will keep you informed as we make investments in both categories — stay tuned!

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