Matt Cohen

🌊 Founder & Managing Partner @ripple_ventures 🎙 Host of @TankTalkPodcast

[Matt Cohen @mattybcohen]

Eight years ago I started @ripple_ventures with a simple thesis: back the most ambitious founders we could find, in the markets that move GDP.

Today @_dominiclau and I are announcing that Fund IV is live, anchored by Northleaf Capital Partners, @RBC / @rbcx , and one of Canada's largest private conglomerates. We have completed our first close and already have ten companies in the portfolio.

Our world has changed a lot since 2018, but our role as a VC has not. What has changed is where that ambition is showing up. It is no longer in IT budgets, but in rocket launch, air defence systems, critical minerals exploration, biology labs, and the manual back-office workflows nobody wants to do by hand. These are the markets that decide what a country owns next.

Three things are guiding this fund:

- Following the brightest founders into the most ambitious things being built.
- Investing with conviction in the earliest stages (pre-product and pre-traction).
- Supporting sovereign capabilities with frontier technologies.

Welcoming the newest portfolio companies out of this fund:

@CanadaRocket Company (sovereign launch capability)
@NV_Dynamics (full-stack air defence systems)
Terranox AI (AI uranium exploration)
Daedal Systems (diagnostics for fusion reactors)
Valen (AI to improve drugs)
Green Abundance (plant engineering)
@urunml (infrastructure for the interactive era)
Silmo (AI for the back office)
Blackletter (building a new type of law firm)
Asset (embedded AI accounting)

To the founders we have not met yet: if you are building with this level of ambition, we'd love to partner with you. Come find us early, that is when we are most useful.

Watch the launch video and read our full article below.

cc: @katiekola_smile @okayjay70

[Matt Cohen @mattybcohen]

🗓️ On May 18, 2020, the first @TankTalkPodcast episode went live.

Six and a half years and 350 episodes later, over a million listeners have tuned in.

What's even crazier is that none of this was built to be a podcast.

It started with @ripple_ventures mission: support our founders and build community. The Tank, our first office, was where that mission became something you could walk into and see with your own eyes.

Every few weeks, we'd make The Tank better by inviting someone worth learning from to share what they knew.

When COVID hit, I assumed it was all over. Everyone had to leave The Tank, but it turned out no one wanted to leave the talks behind.

So we took the interviews online and broadcast them to our founders so they could keep learning while stuck indoors.

Fast forward to today, a few milestones:
• Our new website is live at https://t.co/N5527AXfwN
• We just published our 350th episode
• We've passed 1M social media impressions

Most importantly, we've heard and shared the stories of first-time founders, founders with billion-dollar exits, world-class investors, and even a few celebrity athletes jumping into the startup arena.

We started Tank Talks to support founders and build community. 350 episodes later, we're just getting started.

There are a lot more founders to meet and a lot more rooms to fill.

Pull up a chair at https://t.co/N5527AXfwN. Whether you're a founder, investor, operator, student, or just curious, The Tank is always open.

[Jonathan Rosenbluth @jrbluth]

Law firms say they’re built to serve clients. In truth, they're built to serve their partners.

Blackletter raised $6M to put clients first. Led by @LererHippeau with the CEOs of @cohere, @twelvelabs and @adaption_ai.

75+ clients, from day-to-day work to @WindBorneWx's $37M Series B.

[Matt Cohen @mattybcohen]

See links for full episode:

▶️ YouTube: https://t.co/vApV4rIv9E

🎧 Apple Podcasts: https://t.co/FqMHAIYOVa

🟢 Spotify: https://t.co/5VYO7pOR8Q

[Matt Cohen @mattybcohen]

Budget 2026 gave Canadian tech exactly what it asked for.

✅ Up to $15M CAD in capital gains exemptions per person, per business. Canada’s answer to U.S. QSBS.
✅ A rollover so exit proceeds can go into the next Canadian startup instead of heading south.
✅ Aimed squarely at IP-based companies built here.

A few caveats: it’s not law yet, it’s not retroactive, and unexercised options don’t count.

@ruffoloj and I break it all down on @TankTalkPodcast.

Take the win. Now it’s time to build 🤝

[Matt Cohen @mattybcohen]

Canada’s answer to QSBS is here. Last summer I wrote a memo with @buildcanada on what a competitive capital gains policy would take to keep founders building here.

Today’s Budget 2026 adopted many of those recommendations in the new Canada Growth Incentive. A great first step for 🇨🇦 tech.

Budget 2026 lifts the capital gains exemption from $1.28M to $15M. A founder with a $15M exit keeps 96%, up from 71%.

Resets for every new company. Covers early employees and angels. 3-year hold vs 5 in the US.

https://t.co/iaxyhtIOeR

[Matt Cohen @mattybcohen]

See links for full episode:

▶️ YouTube: https://t.co/LSbrg9peIe

🎧 Apple Podcasts: https://t.co/FqMHAIYOVa

🟢 Spotify: https://t.co/5VYO7pOR8Q

[Matt Cohen @mattybcohen]

Your AI spend isn’t too high because AI is expensive.

It’s too high because every task goes to the same model.

@PeterJ_Walker (Head of insights at @OpenRouter) watches 180 trillion tokens move every week across 500+ models. He knows where the money goes.

New @TankTalkPodcast below

[Matt Cohen @mattybcohen]

@aykut_ged Incredible stuff!

[Matt Cohen @mattybcohen]

RT @transformerlab: We’re thrilled to welcome Ethan Thompson to Transformer Lab as Lead Research Scientist in Quantum Science.

Ethan joins…

[Matt Cohen @mattybcohen]

@MattMickiewicz Gotta do this for Canada Matt!! Amazing

[Matt Cohen @mattybcohen]

See links for full episode:

▶️ YouTube: https://t.co/f2gEHWyxO2

🎧 Apple Podcasts: https://t.co/FqMHAIZmKI

🟢 Spotify: https://t.co/5VYO7pPoYo

[Matt Cohen @mattybcohen]

New @TankTalkPodcast Rundown with @ruffoloj

Ottawa’s $1.75B venture push, why Canadian startups sell before they scale, Anthropic’s growth vs. its compute commitments, and why AI agents are now a boardroom cyber risk.

Watch & listen below

[Matt Cohen @mattybcohen]

See links for full episode:

▶️ YouTube: https://t.co/IJFEt6PHSu

🎧 Apple Podcasts: https://t.co/FqMHAIYOVa

🟢 Spotify: https://t.co/5VYO7pOR8Q

[Matt Cohen @mattybcohen]

Most founders chase hot industries.

In 1990, Mike Mahannah bought a Calgary sheet metal shop for $1M. When Amazon started building data centers, revenue went from $20M to $160M in four years.

Never missed a delivery date. Sold for ~$260M.

New @TankTalkPodcast links below

[Matt Cohen @mattybcohen]

@infrastack_ai Perfect timing! Agent auditing is exactly where the industry is going. Congrats on the launch

[Matt Cohen @mattybcohen]

Third exit this year from @ripple_ventures Fund III, a 2023 vintage fund.

Page has been acquired by @goclio, following Hyper to Motorola and NetNow to BlackLine.

All three are real cash back to our LPs, three years in.

Congrats to the Page team.

https://t.co/s35p02JnOs

[Matt Cohen @mattybcohen]

@shomikghosh21 @Sierra_Ventures Thanks for jumpin in the Tank @shomikghosh21

[Matt Cohen @mattybcohen]

See links for full episode:

▶️ YouTube: https://t.co/Xz3Gr9j8w4

🎧 Apple Podcasts: https://t.co/FqMHAIYOVa

🟢 Spotify: https://t.co/5VYO7pOR8Q

[Matt Cohen @mattybcohen]

Most VCs listen to podcasts. @shomikghosh21 watches public market investor days instead.

As a partner at @Sierra_Ventures (Intuitive Surgical, Intuit), he's followed over 175 public companies through earnings calls and investor presentations, covering everything from packaging and photonics to manufacturing jet-engine metals.

So, when a hard tech founder walks in, he already knows their supply chain. Being a specialized generalist lets him move faster than others.

The best hard tech investors are the ones reading beyond typical sources. If you are interested in space, this episode is the fastest way to see what works and where to look.

Full episode in comments below

[Matt Cohen @mattybcohen]

See links for full episode:

▶️ YouTube: https://t.co/zrCurOoI17

🎧 Apple Podcasts: https://t.co/FqMHAIZmKI

🟢 Spotify: https://t.co/5VYO7pPoYo

[Matt Cohen @mattybcohen]

Why are investors betting on Canadian startups?

Silicon Valley has produced some of the world's most successful founders. Not just because they're talented, but because they're loud about what they build.

Canada has the talent. We just don't make noise.

"We are crap at telling our stories. We're crap at bragging about things, and we get really busy just building the business."
- Michael Garrity

The calibre of founders at @nrthtechCA makes it clear.

On this week of @TankTalkPodcast, we have a range of guests: one built a billion-dollar company, one invests in founders from the world's largest network of AI researchers, and one runs a 700-company portfolio out of San Francisco, and still calls Toronto her favourite place to scout.

If you think the best founders are all south of the border, bookmark this one. We might change your mind.