The Venture Studio Forum

Chief Content Officer

9point8 Collective

9point8 supports early stage investors, accelerators, and venture studios through services and technology. We focus on entity design, strategy, talent development, and diligence.

Partner

Venture Studio Associates

CogBias AI

Bad questions lead to bad answers which lead to bad decisions. 

Break the cycle.

Ask better questions and see truths hidden in the answers.

CogBias AI is a platform for industry specific application development to detect Cognitive Bias in product development, hiring, legal, healthcare, and marketing research.

Co-Founder - CPO

Savvy Tinkers Studios

We partner with experienced professionals to build AI powered B2B SaaS Startups. Building first portfolio companies now. 

We partner with:
✔️ Experienced professionals with at least 10 years of experience
✔️ A problem they want to solve where they have 3 years of relevant experience

NCR Corporation

Formed the New Ventures Group, a startup studio inspired group focused on delivering early innovations to deployed products. Supported by the CEO, COO, CTO, and business unit GMs on the heals of the success of the launch of the first internal accelerator program.

✔️ Proposed and led NCR’s first accelerator program with the full support of the CEO and ELT. Delivered $90M in revenue from the first cohort with multiple teams taking products to market.
✔️ Launched the New Ventures Group operating as a hybrid startup studio responsible for transitioning multiple concepts to product owners, supported M&A evaluations, and market analysis.
✔️ Provided opportunity and framework to establish partnership to deliver strategic inroads to retail opportunities and new revenue streams worth over $2B.

Innovation Principal

Led innovation efforts across retail, financial, and hospitality lines of businesses. Secured executive support for partnerships and responsible for over 20% of patent filings for FY 2019.

✔️ Proposed an M&A to the CEO, GM of Retail, and Head of M&A backed with a business case that resulted in a partnership agreement with a potential revenue of $80M ARR in year 1. 
✔️ Found a $9B cost savings opportunity in the North American banking industry. Secured over 10 patents, built a business case, and secured executive support to pursue opportunity.
✔️ Trained internal teams on Flashpoint customer discovery techniques to leverage behavioral economics techniques to minimize cognitive bias in customer discovery

Innovation Leader

Providing internal product teams innovation and new product development support during NCR’s transition to an ‘as-a Service’ business model. 

✔️ Joined a team of intrapreneurs participating in the Flashpoint accelerator program, interviewing 175 customers and identifying 10 opportunities worth a deeper look.
✔️ Built the business case for three opportunities in finance and the convenience fuel retail industries, each with a potential of generating more than $100MM in SaaS revenue.
✔️ Led cross-functional hardware and software development teams to architect, prototype, and develop solutions leveraging computer vision, data analysis, deep learning, AI, and mobile development.

Innovation Engineer

Savvy Tinker Consulting

We worked with industry organizations and major investor groups to generate investing, company design frameworks, training, and though leadership content.

✔️ Distilled best practices across Private Equity, Venture Capital, Search Funds, Startup Studios, Accelerators, and Startups for new venture creation processes.
✔️ Adapted a quantitative venture investing approach for the strategic design of new company creation,  product development roadmaps, and focused customer discovery.
✔️ Created an evaluation framework for metal additive manufacturing use cased based by examples and data. 
✔️ Published core market and capabilities analysis on metal additive manufacturing achieving recognition from industry experts.
✔️ Presented findings at LiveWorx in 2018.

Independent Consultant

Flashpoint at Georgia Tech

Sole experienced founder on corporate team participating in the Flashpoint startup accelerator program the focused on adapting and applying behavioral economics and cognitive bias insights to improve the quality of customer discovery and user research in startups and new product development efforts.

✔️ Interviewed 175 customers using behavioral and cognitive bias limiting approaches. 
✔️ Mapped internal and external customer ecosystems to understand factors that shaped customer behavior and decisions.

Intrapreneur, Corporate Innovation Team @ Cohort 8

SPIN Collective Partnership

SPIN Collective was a collection of serial founders offering innovation and special projects consulting.

✔️ Delivered a strategy for $50MM annual cost savings for an agricultural client
✔️ Identified innovation special project opportunities with projected revenues of $500M ARR and $150M ARR respectively.
✔️ Identified a strategic gap in private equity operations strategy to deliver an additional 1-2x multiple through a targeted product innovation strategy based on work from McKinsey.
✔️ Developed financial model for growth value creation based on strategies found in private equity, search funds, venture studios, startup factories, and startup studios.

Innovation Consultant

MatterFab

MatterFab focused on designing industrial metal 3d printers targeting production and industry applications in the injection molding, aerospace, medical, and automotive industries.

✔️ Designed & built multiple prototypes capable of printing +98.5% dense solid stainless steel parts optimizing over process 200 variables.
✔️ Secured $2.5M in LOIs in under 8 weeks from mid-sized businesses and large enterprises.
✔️ Secured strategic partnerships & funded R&D agreements with Fortune 50 company.

Founder

Venture Studio Architect - I help you design, launch, and grow your company creation studio.

I’m an entrepreneurial strategy and innovation leader with 20+ years of experience designing and scaling ventures, partnerships, and corporate initiatives that have generated over $500M in strategic value.

As Chief Content Officer at The Venture Studio Forum, I lead the world’s largest global venture studio association—now 400+ members representing $48B+ in value creation across 675 companies and 8 unicorns. I drive content, standards, and community that define the venture studio asset class and position it for institutional adoption.

Previously, I launched NCR’s first internal accelerator—generating $90M from its first cohort—and secured 27+ patents across AI, fintech, and computer vision. I’ve built and scaled startups from zero to funding and strategic partnerships with Fortune 50s, and developed investment and diligence frameworks that institutional investors now use to allocate capital into the studio model.

I work with investors, founders, and innovation leaders to design, launch, and scale venture studios tailored to their goals, environments, and constraints. I bring unmatched breadth of exposure across 500+ global studios to create models that align incentives, avoid fatal design flaws, and drive long-term success.

Let’s connect if you're designing a studio, evaluating the model, or scouting strategic talent to take innovation, venture, or corporate development goals further.

Matthew Burris

Most KPIs focus on fund returns.

But a venture studio’s real job is creation.

That means different benchmarks.

Think: how effectively you validate, build, and spin out companies.

Speed. Cost. Ownership efficiency.

More on the post below: 

P.S. Follow (Matthew Burris) for more venture studio insights

I help innovation leaders build venture studios | Senior Director, Research & Data @ Venture Studio Forum | Partner, Head of Insights @ 9point8 Collective | Keynote Speaker | Trusted by 500+ Studios

The KPI's of a Venture Studio

1960 REITs were "accounting scams." 
1980 PE was "barbarians at the gate." 
2026 Venture Studios are "unallocatable."

History teaches us that every major asset class looked "impossible" at inception. Yale didn't allocate to Venture Capital in the 70s because it was nice. They did it because the industry built the standards (ERISA) to make it safe.

Venture Studios are crossing that exact chasm right now. We have the returns (60% IRR). We lack the rails.

We are building the standards to move this asset class from "Emerging" to "Established."

Here are the 3 barriers we must break this year.

View newsletter: Venture Studio Perspective

I recently spoke with a studio that has built three unicorns to date. By any standard metric, they are an immense success. Yet, they told me it took t

Open article: The 3 barriers stopping institutional allocation into Venture Studios by Matthew Burris • 4 min read

The 3 barriers stopping institutional allocation into Venture Studios

LPs often misread venture studios as early-stage VC funds.

But the investor role here is different:

Not just capital + selection.

It’s capital + creation + control.

Studios don’t source companies, they design them.

That means:

→ Cap tables are pre-structured  
→ Exit paths are mapped pre-incorporation  
→ Capital is deployed with precision, not spray-and-pray

Fewer bets. Larger ownership. Earlier exits.

One allocator said it best:

“In VC, we analyze deal flow. In studios, we analyze design.”

P.S. Follow (Matthew Burris) for more venture studio insights

How Studios Manage Capital to Outperform Traditional VC

10 questions every studio must answer before green-lighting a venture.  

Not every idea is worth validating.  

Before diving in, venture studios should ask:  

1-Does this align with our thesis?
2-Can we actually execute this?
3-Is it worth pursuing?
4-Is it a fit for our follow-on strategy?
5-Do we have access to the right entrepreneurs?
6-Are we solving real problems for real people?
7-Is it actually studio-worthy?
8-Does this play to our unfair advantages?
9-What will we have to outsource or build from scratch?
10-Are we holding on because it's a good idea?

Studios exist to kill weak ideas early.

P.S. Follow for more venture studio insights

10 questions.pdf

Biggest structural issue that limits studio scalability.

It’s quality.

When you increase the number of ventures you’re building, you hit a ceiling fast.

You’re no longer able to provide meaningful support across them all.

Impact gets diluted. Results drop off.

And capital per venture shrinks, which limits your ability to de-risk or move fast.

As the studio scales, so does the team, or reliance on AI.

Both introduce process drift or output inconsistencies.

The bigger you get, the harder it becomes to preserve high standards.

That doesn’t mean scaling is impossible.

AI might help increase the ceiling. 

But it still comes down to craft.

Quality control becomes the bottleneck.

Once you lose that, you’re not a venture studio anymore.

You’re acting like an accelerator or a fund.

P.S. Follow for more venture studio insights.

3 structural issues that limit studio scalability.(more data provided).pdf

Jonas Krensler it was a pleasure to deep dive studios with you and seeing your four pendulum question framework. Understanding the tradeoffs is critical and key to define at the start. Great way to stay building a strong foundation.

Strategic leadership in venture studios + hands-on startup creation to connect corporate assets with startup speed and deliver rapid results | Venture Building, ProdMgmt, BizDev

Great to meet and present alongside Matthew Burris in Vienna — sharing perspectives on the future of venture studios at the Venture Mindset conference.

From governance and funding logic to founder roles and expectations — it’s clear the studio model is evolving fast. And there’s a lot we can learn from bridging US and European approaches.

Special thanks to Matthias Hille for curating a stellar venture studio track — and to the teams at WhatAVenture and Alpha Omega for creating a space for real exchange. Already looking forward to the next one.

#venturestudios #venturebuilding #corporateinnovation #VentureMindset #alphaomega #companycreation

Paul O'Brien

MediaTech Ventures

CEO and Economic Development Advisor

CEO, MediaTech Ventures | Partner, Funded House

Paul O'Brien is the CEO of MediaTech Ventures, where he leverages his extensive experience in economic development, startups, and media technology to guide founders in building successful ventures. Based in Austin, Texas, Paul is known for his innovative approach to designing startup incubators that foster entrepreneurial growth. With a strong ethical foundation and a Libertarian perspective, he actively contributes to discussions on economic development, both through his writing and speaking engagements. A passionate advocate for the convergence of media and technology, Paul is also deeply connected to the local live music scene, reflecting his love for creative industries.

Startup Consultant: CMO, CEO Advisor, Venture Capital Funding, and Business Development

Much of the technology upon which our future world will be built, has been built.  Already engineered and developed, we're experiencing a transition of our tech economy from the infrastructure, platforms, and software on which we build, to the applications, experiences, and innovations the world wants. Our economy is evolving from coded and constructed technology to innovative and practical applications from the minds of designers, artists, business professionals, marketers, and economists.  We're bridging the gap from engineered technology to our future in Energy, Entertainment, Transportation, and more.

But our economy is struggling to make the transition.  
Too few experienced "nodes" in venture capital, incubation, executive participation, corporate partnership, and media/marketing exist through which professionals and the public can make the leap from traditional to new. 

I work with technology executives, entrepreneurs, politicians and planners, developers and economists, media professionals, and venture capitalists to meet our future with a passion for talent, markets, later-stage capital, and thriving economies connected throughout industries and geography.

Working in marketing, product management, business development, and fund raising, I've been involved in MicroVentures, iControl, Dachis Group / Sprinklr, Yahoo, HP, Cospace, Zvents, Outright.com, IP Commerce, Gild, Fliptop, Rev.com, Fovnders, and Corvalent to name a few.

I bring industries to market. I commercialize businesses, products, web services, and entrepreneurs. I'm a tech evangelist, media maven, data analyst, Texas enthusiast, and growth hacker: I get you funded.

6 months
Within weeks, Angel investors coalesced

They arrived, from *hours* away, because of opportunity more meaningful than a #startup Accelerator

A city is unique. The economy and culture are unique. Trying to spin up a startup ecosystem by being "tech" or "for entrepreneurs" is the *wrong* approach. 

If you're years into startup economic development and still struggling with capital, you're doing it wrong.

Abilene is a paradox for #entrepreneurship : Smaller city, remote, and traditional businesses.

Sounds a lot like most cities.

But tap into the way a few of us think, call me, call Founder Institute ... Call JT Benton and 9point8 Collective, and use the methodologies, and find the positioning, that is meaningful to *your* economy.

Michael Bob Starr carried a vision forward which, in only 6 months, got a community together around smaller city paradox

Central Texas Angel Network leaned in with Gary Forni's leadership. DevelopAbilene, Grow Abilene, and The Abilene Chamber of Commerce bolstered. 

We cracked what matters in this part of the world and in 6 months, solved for their paradox with The Paradox Lab

#advancedenergy is what matters here. 
What matters in your community is what makes the difference.

Cities, know, it isn't as difficult as it seems to enable founders and innovation; you're likely doing it wrong, and there is no reason to be trying to figure it out on your own.

I guide governments to foster ecosystems where entrepreneurship works.

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