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Matthew Liebowitz

Managing General Partner, Plaza Ventures · 1 appearance on the record.

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investorfounderexecutiveplaza.ventures ↗

Matthew Leibowitz is Co-Founder and Managing General Partner at Plaza Ventures, where he leads investment strategy focusing on growth-stage technology financing and secondary market funds. He is an early investor and board member in StackAdapt and previously co-founded Quayside Venture Partners with Alphabet's Sidewalk Labs.

11statements → 3claims → 1claims resolved → 4.09/5average certainty → 1.73/5average debate potential →

1 supported 0 partly supported 0 contradicted 2 not checkable as stated how the 3 claims stand · each chip opens the sources

3 assertions · 1 opinion · 7 disclosures · every statement was checked. The predictions and assertions are the 3 claims: statements the public record can support or contradict. 1 is resolved, and 2 name no date, number or outcome precise enough to check. 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 Matthew 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
Plaza Ventures is the first dedicated tech secondary fund in Canada
“There's definitely, we identified about 40 groups in the U.S. That do this either as a core focus and or a sleeve on their platform, but we're first to market, believe it or not, in Canada.”
Matthew Liebowitz Apr 11, 2019 ▶ 7:14 1356 Early Employee Who Wants to Sell A Few Shares? Plaza Ventures New Model Is What You Need.

How they sound: not measured why? →

We measure speaking style by listening to the audio itself, and a fair number needs at least 2,000 words from one person on tape we have measured. There is too little of Matthew Liebowitz on measured tape to publish a rate. This says nothing about how they speak.

Everything Matthew Liebowitz said on Top Founders that made the record, most notable first. Filter by type, assessment or year in the ledger →

Disclosure
Plaza Ventures raises annual funds, seeding one-third with internal capital
“So instead of raising a large one year, 10 year monolithic fund, we raise one or two funds every year. We seed each of the fund with about a third of our own capital.”
Matthew Liebowitz Apr 11, 2019 ▶ 2:58 1356 Early Employee Who Wants to Sell A Few Shares? Plaza Ventures New Model Is What You Need.
Disclosure
Plaza Ventures operates on a zero-fee, 20 percent carry model
“We don't actually charge any management fees in any of our funds. We take a 20% carried interest after a hundred percent return to capital. So, so think of us as a zero and 20 model.”
Matthew Liebowitz Apr 11, 2019 ▶ 3:36 1356 Early Employee Who Wants to Sell A Few Shares? Plaza Ventures New Model Is What You Need.
Disclosure
Plaza Ventures Deploys 40% to 60% of Capital on Day One
“Whereas what we're saying to our LPs is, Hey, here's where typically 40 to 60% of your capital is going on day one. So we've already diligenced these companies, and we basically raise a fund in lockstep with doing the investments.”
Matthew Liebowitz Apr 11, 2019 ▶ 5:05 1356 Early Employee Who Wants to Sell A Few Shares? Plaza Ventures New Model Is What You Need.
Assertion Supported
Plaza Ventures is the first dedicated tech secondary fund in Canada
“There's definitely, we identified about 40 groups in the U.S. That do this either as a core focus and or a sleeve on their platform, but we're first to market, believe it or not, in Canada.”
Matthew Liebowitz Apr 11, 2019 ▶ 7:14 1356 Early Employee Who Wants to Sell A Few Shares? Plaza Ventures New Model Is What You Need.
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Canadian tech companies now scale to $100M+ revenue before exiting
“It used to be that you know, a company would get to five, ten million revenue and then sell. Now companies are much more bullish and are looking to go to a hundred million plus in revenue, and thus they have a lot more of an employee base that's underneath the…”
Matthew Liebowitz Apr 11, 2019 ▶ 7:54 1356 Early Employee Who Wants to Sell A Few Shares? Plaza Ventures New Model Is What You Need.
Disclosure
Plaza Ventures Targets 18 to 36 Month Secondary Liquidity Windows
“So we are not buying out other VC funds. We're not, the pitch is to the, to management is not, Hey, We're investing in your company and thus it could delay an IPO. It's actually quite the opposite. We're actually going down a level or two and going and buying …”
Matthew Liebowitz Apr 11, 2019 ▶ 8:56 1356 Early Employee Who Wants to Sell A Few Shares? Plaza Ventures New Model Is What You Need.
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Plaza Ventures executes employee secondaries in lockstep with company CEOs
“So we're not going around the CEO. We're doing it in lockstep with them in parallel with them. And in fact, in every deal we've done thus far in every transaction we're looking at thus far, frankly, the CEO is our number one champion. And they've actually been…”
Matthew Liebowitz Apr 11, 2019 ▶ 14:12 1356 Early Employee Who Wants to Sell A Few Shares? Plaza Ventures New Model Is What You Need.
Opinion
A Bloomberg Terminal for private tech shares is a massive market opportunity
“There's no dare I say, Bloomberg terminal private shares of later stage private tech companies. I'd love, I wish there was, that would certainly perhaps make my life a little bit easier. But having said that I think that would be a great opportunity.”
Matthew Liebowitz Apr 11, 2019 ▶ 14:43 1356 Early Employee Who Wants to Sell A Few Shares? Plaza Ventures New Model Is What You Need.
Disclosure
Plaza Ventures targets secondary shares from angel investors and early employees
“So we're actually buying shares primarily from either early angel investors and or early ex-employees in late-stage private, pre-IPO, pre-M&A, pre-private equity investment and or change of control transaction companies.”
Matthew Liebowitz Apr 11, 2019 ▶ 6:59 1356 Early Employee Who Wants to Sell A Few Shares? Plaza Ventures New Model Is What You Need.
Disclosure
Plaza Ventures typically writes $3M to $5M secondary checks
“So we're doing typically off-balance sheet investments, so these are secondaries. It doesn't hit their It, the board typically doesn't have to convene on these deals. They're much smaller in nature. They're typically three or four or five million dollars in n…”
Matthew Liebowitz Apr 11, 2019 ▶ 10:49 1356 Early Employee Who Wants to Sell A Few Shares? Plaza Ventures New Model Is What You Need.
Disclosure
Plaza Ventures closed a $50 million secondary fund
“It's a fifty million dollar fund.”
Matthew Liebowitz Apr 11, 2019 ▶ 15:10 1356 Early Employee Who Wants to Sell A Few Shares? Plaza Ventures New Model Is What You Need.

Appearances (1)

EpisodeDateSpeaking time
1356 Early Employee Who Wants to Sell A Few Shares? Plaza Ventures New Model Is What You N Apr 11, 2019 9m
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