Matthew looks for founders before the company has a financial model or has appeared on any VC's radar. Increasingly he advises rather than invests, sometimes taking equity for the work, and he says he does not generally back solo founders. He spent about 12 years on Wall Street at Oppenheimer & Co and CIBC World Markets, finishing as a managing director, then left in 2007 for a private equity firm that bought half a dozen industrial manufacturing companies. He has been on staff at Harvard Business School for around eight years, where he built the Field X course with Professor Randy Cohen and has worked with more than a thousand founders coming through it. He also advises Harvard Ventures.
Matthew Sutton is an early-stage investor and advisor in frontier technology, on staff at Harvard Business School, and an advisor to Harvard Ventures, which lists him as a private investor. He spent his first career on Wall Street.
The Harvard Business School entrepreneurship course he built with Professor Randy Cohen and has taught on staff for around eight years. More than a thousand students have come through it, with guests including Jason Calacanis, Tim Draper and Kevin O'Leary.
Signals that show up before anything else does. He focuses on founders whose idea has not taken form yet and has no financial model attached, and says he rarely backs solo founders because he wants people who can work through problems together.
He backs and advises early-stage companies in AI, defense, quantum computing and space, and met the Perseus Defense founders through Y Combinator. He is explicit that his position in Anthropic was not an early one.
About 12 years on Wall Street at Oppenheimer & Co and CIBC World Markets, ending as a managing director, then roughly six years at a private equity firm buying industrial manufacturing companies.
By investing time before money. His stated approach is to understand what motivates someone and help where he can, whether or not a transaction ever follows, and increasingly to advise companies rather than write a check.
