This is Episode (12) of Venture Studio
Welcome to this week's conversation with Matt Harris, co-founder and Managing General Partner of Village Ventures, a NYC-based $135m venture fund focused on both the media and financial services sectors. Matt founded Village Ventures with his college roommate Bo Peabody approximately eleven years ago and together they've grown their network of partner funds to 15 in size across the United States and Europe.
Matt is the partner in his fund who invests exclusively in financial services companies sitting on the Boards of such companies as iSend, OnDeck Capital, TxVia, BlueTarp Financial and others. As you'll learn in the conversation below, he's extremely bullish on the mobile payments and point-of-sale space. You can also get acquainted with his point of view on things on his blog, aptly named- For The Win.
At the risk of embarassing him it must be said that, (to put it mildly), he's held in great esteem not just by the entrepreneurs in whom he invests but notably by his many peers in the investment community. Enough said.... Enjoy
:20 - Getting to know Village Ventures- their story
1:14 - The Village Ventures network of partner funds
2:05 - The financial services sector & mobile payments in particular
3:17 - The value prop of portfolio company, BankSimple
5:22 - "The linkage between geography & banking has been severed"
6:34 - Portfolio company: OnDeck Capital
7:54 - "Venture is most fun when you are solving a societal problem"
8:04 - Learn about the Village Ventures portfolio
9:24 - What's going on in venture in Europe/UK?
10:24 - Matt's thoughts on the Mobile Payments & Point-of-Sale space
11:17 - I ask Matt about his blog, "For the Win"
Click Here for Venture Studio (13) w/ Jeff Clavier, Founder SoftTech VC
