Active Capital

Pre-seed investing in AI-native business software. We back at least one new team every month with $500k to $1M checks. [email protected].

[Pat Matthews @patmatthews]

I’m excited and humbled to share that we’ve closed our third fund at Active Capital: $28M+ to invest in the future of enterprise software and cloud infrastructure.

I started Active Capital seven years ago with a belief: founders deserve early capital from someone who's walked in their shoes. Someone who truly understands the challenges of starting and building a great company.  With this new fund, we’re continuing to invest in the kinds of companies I helped build, many of which are building in underdog cities across America.

As an entrepreneur, I’ve helped lead companies through major shifts—from old-school software to SaaS, cloud, and mobile. Today, I couldn’t be more excited to back the next generation of founders who are re-shaping software and infrastructure in the AI era.

The strategy is working. Our first fund, raised in 2018, has already returned nearly 70% of capital, with a total value-to-paid-in (TVPI) multiple—meaning the current value relative to capital invested—now exceeding 4x.

While this is the largest fund we’ve raised to date, it’s still smaller than most funds you’ll read about. When I started Active Capital, I purposefully decided that part of our strategy would be to raise multiple similar-sized, $25M-ish funds—to stay focused, master our craft, and resist the urge to go upmarket.  This is a very unique strategy in venture capital as the temptation to raise bigger and bigger funds is extreme.

That said, small numbers add up too. This new fund brings us to over $100M in assets under management, across three similar-sized funds and several individual investments in breakout companies.

Since 2018, we’ve backed 50+ startups across the country, in cities like San Antonio, Austin, Minneapolis, Kansas City, Miami, Atlanta, Boulder, Portland and of course… NYC & SF.

Some of our early exits include:
- Altru, acquired by iCIMS
- Cloudsnap, acquired by Paylocity
- Finmark, acquired by https://t.co/bjbNMcLrQv
- Makeswift, acquired by BigCommerce
- RemoteTeam, acquired by Gusto

What we invest in:
- Lead or co-lead pre-seed rounds
- $500K–$1M checks in $500K–$3M rounds
- Strong preference for smaller rounds, low burn, and extreme focus on product market fit
- Technical founders, solo or team, building in cities across America

More about Active:
- Pre-seed firm focused on enterprise software & cloud infrastructure
- Solo GP firm & awesome team with 15+ years working together
- Repeatable, similar-sized funds; focused on mastery, not scale
- We’re long term investors–we don’t chase early markups or depend on secondary sales
- Backed entirely by successful founders, families, entrepreneurs, and operators—no institutional capital

I’m especially grateful to our investor base—from former Rackers, to incredibly successful families and entrepreneurs in San Antonio, to founders and friends I’ve met along the way… and of course, plenty of Virginia Tech Hokies. THANK YOU!

If you’re building something bold at the pre-seed stage, let’s connect.