The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
20 VC 097: Betting Big on Consumer Fintech with Matthew Bradley, Investor @ Forward Partners
16 Dec 2015
Matthew is an Investor at Forward Partners: a super-early stage London VC. Forward Partners invests in solo-founders, idea stage and seed stage eCommerce, marketplace and related software businesses providing them with funding, office space and the support of an expert in-house engineering, product and growth team. Before becoming a VC, Matthew had varying degrees of success (!) with retail and security tech start-ups. He began his career in Sales, Structuring and Trading at investment banks. He holds a BA in Economics and Politics and an MBA from SDA Bocconi. A huge thank you to Mattermark for all the data discussed in today's show and you can find them here! CLICK TO PLAY In Today's Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How did Matt make his way into the world of VC? What would he advise someone wanting to get into the industry? 2.) How does Forward Partners differentiate themselves in such a sea of seed funds? What is unique about their model? 3.) What are the key activities that entrepreneurs can do to build a successful business, ready for Series A? What would Matt advise someone who has an idea but no technical skills? 4.) What are the nuances and complexities of the early stage funding environment? How do Forward approach and overcome them? Are there any common misconceptions? 5.) What are the similarities and differences between the US and the UK with regards to start-up attractiveness? Where would Matt choose to found his startup if he were a founder? 6.) Considering YC’s recent intake, where does Matt see growth areas in consumer facing startups? Items Mentioned In Today's Show: Matthew's Fave Book: Mikhail Bulgakov: The Master & Margarita Matthew's Fave Newsletter: Mattermark Daily, The Equity Kicker, First Round Review Matthew's Most Recent Investment: Live Better With As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Matthew on Twitter here! If you would like to see a more colourful side to Harry with many a mojito session, you can follow him on Instagram here!
No persons identified in this episode.
This episode hasn't been transcribed yet
Help us prioritize this episode for transcription by upvoting it.
Popular episodes get transcribed faster
Other episodes from The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
Transcribed and ready to explore now
20VC: The Startup Adding $1M ARR Every Week | Competing Against OpenAI's Codex and Claude Code: Who Wins | Why Gemini is Failing and GPT-5 Is Winning | Do Margins Matter in a World of AI | The Ugly Truth About AI Coding with Zach Lloyd, Warp
17 Oct 2025
The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
20VC: Why To Win in AI, Investors Need to Change Their Approach | Why VC is Run by Principals and Associates and is a Broken System | The Bull Case for Anthropic & Whether Deepseek Changes Their Strategy with Nabeel Hyatt @ Spark Capital
04 Apr 2025
The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
20Growth: Inside Ramp's Growth Engine: How Ramp Became the Fastest Growing SaaS Company Ever | What Worked & What Did Not Work | How to Hire for Growth | How to Find Alpha in Channels Where No One Else Can with George Bonaci
28 Feb 2025
The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
20VC: The Insane Story of Glovo: Selling 30% of the Company for €100K | The McDonalds Deal That Saved Them | Running out of Money Three Times | Burning $1M Per Day | Being Acquired for $2.2BN with Oscar Pierre, Founder @ Glovo
26 Feb 2025
The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
20VC: Why Google Will Win the AI Arms Race & OpenAI Will Not | NVIDIA vs AMD: Who Wins and Why | The Future of Inference vs Training | The Economics of Compute & Why To Win You Must Have Product, Data & Compute with Steeve Morin @ ZML
24 Feb 2025
The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
20VC Exclusive: Mercor Raises $100M at a $2BN Valuation: Scaling to $70M in ARR in 24 Months | 9-9-6: 9AM-9PM - 6 Days Per Week: The Most Intense Culture in Silicon Valley | The Future of Programming, Models and Data with Adarsh Hiremath
20 Feb 2025
The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch