Matt Harris

Partner, Bain Capital Ventures · 1 appearance on the record.

computed by AI from the episodes · how this works → · full disclaimer →

Matt Harris is a Partner at Bain Capital Ventures, specializing in financial technology and services. He has led investments in companies such as Acorns, OpenFin, SigFig, Ribbon, and Billtrust.

12statements → 4claims → 2claims resolved → 4.08/5average certainty → 2.25/5average debate potential → ≈4.5/5argument clarity, estimated → 27said about them ↓

2 supported 0 partly supported 0 contradicted 2 not yet assessed how the 4 claims stand · each chip opens the sources

2 predictions · 2 assertions · 2 opinions · 3 insights · 3 disclosures · every statement was checked. The predictions and assertions are the 4 claims: statements the public record can support or contradict. 2 are resolved, 2 are not yet assessed. Everything else (opinions, insights, what ifs, disclosures) can never be settled by the record, so it carries no assessment.

The record, in short

What the tape says about how Matt argues and how the claims held up. Everything they said, and everything said about them, is in the tabs below.

Their most notable supported claim

Assertion Supported

Matt Harris: Fintech grew to 10%–20% of all venture capital

“Fintech became 10 or 15% of the venture business, 20% some years.”

Matt Harris Sep 23, 2019 ▶ 4:55 20VC: Bain's Matt Harris on Why Valuation And Market Size Are Not The Most Important Thing At Series A, Why Backing Sociopaths Can Work & Late Cycle Momentum Investing & The Changes That Will Stay in Venture Forever

How they sound: speaking style how? →

234 words/min while actually speaking · 0.6 um and uh per 1k words

No argument clarity score for Matt Harris: no usable question→answer exchanges on raw tape (a fair score needs 8+). We do not score a sample that small. Roundtable and news formats yield far fewer direct exchanges than interviews. Their coarse estimate from 24 exchanges on the produced feed is ≈4.5/5, shown at half point precision because the sample is small and produced tape scores higher.

Measured by listening to 4,904 words across 1 episode, but every recording we have of Matt Harris is the aired feed, and an editor cleaned that audio before release. Some of the hesitation was cut before we ever heard it, so read these as floors: the true rates are at least this high. These are measurements of speaking style, not scores. How it's measured →

How the interview went all their pushback → series average →

Across 1 rated episode:

host pushback ▾ 5/10

pushed back at the host ▾ 2/10

setup questions received 65%

host pushback: the hardest questions Harry asked, tap to play ▶ 10:00“Can I ask, do you think that we are seeing late cycle momentum investing?” ▶ 13:08“So, what did you mean by Series A valuations don't matter anymore?” ▶ 25:03“What did you really mean by this, Matt? And how can it work?”

when Matt pushed back ▶ 13:12“Well, first, I'd like to say that I really look forward to the first time an entrepreneur plays that back to me in our negotiations, so thank you for Outing me on that sentiment.” ▶ 25:06“Well, okay, now we're definitely cherry picking, uh, controversial quotes here, but I'll stand by all of it.”

What they said12 What others said27 Episodes1

Everything Matt Harris said on 20VC that made the record, most notable first. Filter by type, assessment or year in the ledger →

Insight

Matt Harris: Refusing rule-breaking founders sacrifices venture upside

“If we only back founders who are unwilling to break rules, then I think we're giving away a lot of the upside of our industry.”

Matt Harris Sep 23, 2019 ▶ 26:42 20VC: Bain's Matt Harris on Why Valuation And Market Size Are Not The Most Important Thing At Series A, Why Backing Sociopaths Can Work & Late Cycle Momentum Investing & The Changes That Will Stay in Venture Forever

Insight

Harris: Entry valuation matters little if Series A ownership hits 18%-25%

“If you own 20%, 25%, 18%, something meaningful of a company that ends up being important, then it doesn't really matter whether your entry price was 20 posts or 40 posts.”

Matt Harris Sep 23, 2019 ▶ 13:30 20VC: Bain's Matt Harris on Why Valuation And Market Size Are Not The Most Important Thing At Series A, Why Backing Sociopaths Can Work & Late Cycle Momentum Investing & The Changes That Will Stay in Venture Forever

Disclosure

Bain Capital Ventures pauses deals receiving unanimous partner votes

“We have a rule internally that if everybody votes for a deal, we need to pause and rethink it.”

Matt Harris Sep 23, 2019 ▶ 21:36 20VC: Bain's Matt Harris on Why Valuation And Market Size Are Not The Most Important Thing At Series A, Why Backing Sociopaths Can Work & Late Cycle Momentum Investing & The Changes That Will Stay in Venture Forever

Disclosure

Matt Harris: Fear of macro cycles has cost me a lot of money

“My deep and abiding fear and recognition of the cyclicality of finance and the cyclicality of technology has actually cost me a lot of money.”

Matt Harris Sep 23, 2019 ▶ 9:15 20VC: Bain's Matt Harris on Why Valuation And Market Size Are Not The Most Important Thing At Series A, Why Backing Sociopaths Can Work & Late Cycle Momentum Investing & The Changes That Will Stay in Venture Forever

Disclosure

Harris: Bain Capital Ventures no longer co-leads Series A rounds

“Where we end up having to somewhat frustratingly draw a hard line is we generally don't co-lead Series A's anymore.”

Matt Harris Sep 23, 2019 ▶ 17:55 20VC: Bain's Matt Harris on Why Valuation And Market Size Are Not The Most Important Thing At Series A, Why Backing Sociopaths Can Work & Late Cycle Momentum Investing & The Changes That Will Stay in Venture Forever

Opinion

Bain Capital: Market size is not the top Series A criteria

“We do talk about market size, but we surely don't think it's the most important thing at a Series A.”

Matt Harris Sep 23, 2019 ▶ 23:08 20VC: Bain's Matt Harris on Why Valuation And Market Size Are Not The Most Important Thing At Series A, Why Backing Sociopaths Can Work & Late Cycle Momentum Investing & The Changes That Will Stay in Venture Forever

Opinion

Harris: VC Diversity Requires 50/50 Junior Hiring Plus Senior Lateral Hires

“At the lower ranks of our firms, we need to bring in the correct balance, correct being fifty-fifty at a minimum of men and women, and minorities should be added to this question as well, and we also need to lateral in senior investing talent at the same time.…”

Matt Harris Sep 23, 2019 ▶ 27:27 20VC: Bain's Matt Harris on Why Valuation And Market Size Are Not The Most Important Thing At Series A, Why Backing Sociopaths Can Work & Late Cycle Momentum Investing & The Changes That Will Stay in Venture Forever

Prediction Open · timeframe Sep 2024

Harris: Software platforms' share of total payment spend will reach 80%

“To our earlier conversation, it's about eight percent of all payment spend goes through software companies. But our view is that that eight is going to 80.”

Matt Harris Sep 23, 2019 ▶ 31:58 20VC: Bain's Matt Harris on Why Valuation And Market Size Are Not The Most Important Thing At Series A, Why Backing Sociopaths Can Work & Late Cycle Momentum Investing & The Changes That Will Stay in Venture Forever

Prediction Not publicly verifiable

Matt Harris: Bain Capital Ventures targets $300M–$400M annual deployment

“Our goal has been to invest three or four hundred million dollars a year. Again, we do both venture and growth equity, so that seems like a lot of money, but many of those are large checks and later stage companies. Fully half of it is your classic five to twe…”

Matt Harris Sep 23, 2019 ▶ 12:24 20VC: Bain's Matt Harris on Why Valuation And Market Size Are Not The Most Important Thing At Series A, Why Backing Sociopaths Can Work & Late Cycle Momentum Investing & The Changes That Will Stay in Venture Forever

Insight

Harris: Early-Career VCs Should Reject Generic Networking For Deep Differentiation

“I wish back then I'd said, More no to social obligations and these sort of vast generic horizontal obligations that we all take on, thinking that's what a venture capitalist should do, and instead focused on one or two things that really differentiate me.”

Matt Harris Sep 23, 2019 ▶ 30:30 20VC: Bain's Matt Harris on Why Valuation And Market Size Are Not The Most Important Thing At Series A, Why Backing Sociopaths Can Work & Late Cycle Momentum Investing & The Changes That Will Stay in Venture Forever

Assertion Supported

Matt Harris: Fintech grew to 10%–20% of all venture capital

“Fintech became 10 or 15% of the venture business, 20% some years.”

Assertion Supported

Harris: Series A post-money valuations doubled over five years

“What we would now have come to believe is a reasonable post-money range for Series A, so kind of 30 to 60, which is important in light of the fact that if you go back five years, that range would have been kind of 15 to 30.”

Matt Harris Sep 23, 2019 ▶ 16:24 20VC: Bain's Matt Harris on Why Valuation And Market Size Are Not The Most Important Thing At Series A, Why Backing Sociopaths Can Work & Late Cycle Momentum Investing & The Changes That Will Stay in Venture Forever

The other half of the tape: Matt Harris's own voice is left out of every number here. Other people bring the name up 26 times in 7 episodes on 20VC. 1 statement on the record names them. every mention, with the transcript →

Who brings them up most Harry Stebbings 10 Misha Esipov 7 Josh Kopelman 4 Jerry Neumann 3 Nigel Morris 2

Statements about Matt Harris, by other people (1)

Opinion

Goldberg: Matt Harris is the best fintech investor in venture capital

“Matt Harris is, is probably the smartest and best fintech investor out there. I mean, you know, Ribbit's obviously incredible as well, but Matt Harris, I think, you know, has kind of set the direction of fintech for a very long time.”

Mark Goldberg Oct 25, 2024 ▶ 46:23 Mark Goldberg: Why Politics is Rife & Decision-Making is Broken in Large VCs | E1219 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings