Boulder’s Matchstick Ventures closes $30M fund

BOULDER — Matchstick Ventures, a Boulder-based early-stage venture-capital firm co-operated by Techstars Boulder managing director Natty Zola, announced this week the closure of a new $30 million fund.

Matchstick was founded by Ryan Broshar in Minneapolis. Broshar co-founded Twin Cities Startup Week and established Techstars’ retail accelerator program in Minnesota.

Zola joined the firm as a partner in 2018.

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Broshar and Zola met and began working together in 2015 when Broshar visited Techstars Boulder.

“We quickly became friends,” Zola said. “We had similar, non-traditional business upbringings, and we’re both really inspired by entrepreneurship.”

Matchstick’s first fund, closed before Zola joined as a partner, “was really a proof of concept,” Zola said. “Through that fund, Matchstick was able to prove we can get great deal-flow and meaningful ownership. We proved we could really help the companies we invest in both with the day-to-day stuff and with connecting them to networks of capital.”

Broshar and Zola began raising money for the most-recent fund in 2018 and have thus far invested in 10 firms.

“With Fund II, we’re really just expanding on our strategies from the first fund,” Zola said. “But this time, we’re writing bigger checks and providing really supportive capital to the founders [in which Matchstick invests]. We’re also focused on bringing them a lot of resources for their next [fundraising] rounds.”

The firms Matchstick invests in and mentors tend to be technology startups in the greater Denver and Twin Cities areas. Techstars participants, regardless of geography, are often targets for investment.

“We’re really embedded in the Techstars ecosystem,” said Zola, who went through the program in 2009 with his travel-blogging platform Everlater.com. “Both Ryan and I grew up in the Techstars culture, and we’ve learned how to invest from some of the best.”

In addition to continued fundraising at Matchstick, Zola will remain in his position at Techstars.

“I think it really makes a lot of sense to do both,” he said. “We’re bringing more capital to the Techstars ecosystem and making connections with great new startups.”