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

Most innovation programs fail not because of lack of ideas, but because they lack a system for venture creation.

I help innovation leaders in corporations, universities, and economic development organizations build venture studios that scale and deliver. Backed by data, frameworks, and insights from studying over 500 venture studios globally.

As Senior Director of Research & Data at the Venture Studio Forum, I'm building the empirical backbone of the venture studio asset class. VSF is a 501(c)(6) trade association representing 1,500+ members who have built 650+ companies, 11 unicorns, and $48 billion in enterprise value.

My work establishes venture studios as a formal asset class through:

-Asset Class Analysis in partnership with MIT and Harvard, delivering the first institutionally credible research for LPs and institutional investors
-The Venture Studio Index (VSI) — the first open standard and formal definition for venture studios
-Studio Data Platform (2026) providing structured datasets and benchmarks for researchers and operators
-State of the Studio Report (2026) tracking trends, performance, and sector segmentation
-Policy recommendations for state and federal innovation agencies

Concurrently, as Partner and Head of Insights at 9point8 Collective, I translate this research into practice. We've designed and launched 25+ venture studios. Our approach builds clarity, alignment, and momentum at the intersection of innovation, capital, and impact.

I've spent 20+ years at the intersection of innovation, strategy, and venture building. I launched NCR's first internal accelerator (generating $90M from its first cohort), secured 27+ patents across AI and fintech, and developed investment frameworks that institutional investors now use to allocate capital into the studio model.

Speaking & Workshops: I deliver keynotes and workshops on designing high-performing venture studios, the future of venture creation ecosystems, and turning knowledge engines into commercial engines.

🎤 Book me to speak: VentureStudioForum.org/speaking
 📊 Learn from our research: newsletter.venturestudioforum.org
 🌍 Join the community: venturestudioforum.org
 💼 Work with us: 9point8collective.com

Matthew Burris

30,000 entrepreneurs in India. A curated circle of corporate leaders in Vienna. Two different worlds. One shared realization. 👇 

The global innovation ecosystem is done with "innovation theater." It’s time to stop betting and start building.

In October, I stood before thousands at the Tamil Nadu Global Startup Summit. The energy was visceral. Entrepreneurs and leaders were asking the same question: How do we move beyond incubators and actually industrialize success?

Fast forward to last week. I just returned from Vienna, where I had the honor of keynoting the venture studio track at The Venture Mindset conference hosted by the The Alpha Omega Foundation

The setting couldn't have been more different. Intimate, focused, and "bolder, not bigger," but the urgency was identical.

Whether I’m speaking to a government minister in India or a corporate executive in Austria, the conclusion is the same: The Venture Studio is the missing link.

Here is what I learned bridging these two worlds:

1. Engineer certainty rather than betting on luck. In Tamil Nadu the excitement was about volume and in Vienna it was about strategy. Venture studios shift from a power law of outcomes quantity of bets model to a power law of ideas where the quality of the idea becomes paramount as the studio engineers a more certain path to successful company creation.

2. It is not about innovation but governance. In our workshop in India we got hands on designing the actual pit crews needed to support founders. In Vienna speaking to corporate leaders the conversation focused on the Corporate Immune System. The Venture Studio is a Governance Firewall. More innovation theater is not the answer. You need a distinct architectural separation that allows for discovery speed that delivers execution consistency.

3. Build at wholesale instead of retail. The global hunger for this model comes down to economics. In India founders realized that studios can drive improved outcomes and engineer wins. In Vienna corporates realized that the venture studio model adds the build option to corporate development at a 10-20x economic advantage over CVC investments to partner or M&A’s buying options.

This trip marked a shift for me and for the Venture Studio Forum.

We are no longer just defining this asset class; we are activating it globally.
 From defining the "pendulum" between corporate and entrepreneur with Jonas Krensler to discussing the new era of company creation with Matthias Hille, the dialogue has elevated. Mic drop for Michael van Lier showing the contextual capture for modern venture studio insight generation.

The future of company creation isn't just about more startups. It's about building better companies.

📣 I am expanding my speaking in 2026.
Where should we go next? Let me know in the comments or DM me.

Thanks to Matthias Hille and whataventure — New business. Powered by entrepreneurs. for the support and Michael Chaffe for organizing a great event.

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

Venture studios are quietly changing the math on liquidity. 

Traditional VC funds typically take a 10% stake in a company and wait +12 years for a binary IPO or acquisition.

Venture studios can play a different game.

They start with meaningful equity (often 25–50%) in companies they help build from day one.

Even after dilution, that can translate to owning 20% post-seed, 15% post-Series A, and 10% post-Series B.

That ownership matters.

It gives studios real options when it comes to liquidity; far earlier and with more control than traditional VC models allow.

Instead of waiting a decade to return capital, studios can sell down small stakes along the way.

Now they don’t need full exits. And they don’t need to force them, either.

Because they own more, they can sell less and still return capital meaningfully.

They’re not just betting on outcomes. They’re designing for them.

What does this look like?

Take that 30% stake before the Seed round and assume it took $1M to secure it. 

Carts data shows a 19% dilution at seed and a 19% dilution at A. With the options pool already in place when the company is formed, the studio is left with a 19.7% position.

At Series A, with a premoney valuation of $45 and a round of $11M, the post money is $56M.

If the studio sells:

100% -> $11M
75% -> $8.25M
50% -> $5.5M
25% -> $2.75M

Assume $10M fund size for the studio, 60% of their companies reach series A, and a 50% early exit strategy can deliver $33M by around year 5 for a 3.3 MOIC, and an IRR of 11.7% while holding typical pre-seed VC level ownership in 6 companies. 

Early exits recapitalize venture studios, provide liquidity to LPs, and position studios to raise their next fund from a position of strength with vocal supporters..

For more content like this, follow at (Matthew Burris)

The Power of Liquidity Control

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

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

The KPI's of a Venture Studio

Venture studios are outperforming traditional venture funds on paper.

But what’s rarely discussed is how hard it is to operate one at scale.

Why? Because studios don’t just serve 1 type of customer.

They serve 4.

And if even one falls out of sync, the whole model starts to break.

Customer 1: Studio investors

They want venture like returns with less risk. But not all investors play the same game.

A corporate CVC backing a studio for strategic access will tolerate lower returns.

A pension fund expects performance benchmarks within strict timeframes and institutional compliance.

These differences impact everything, from studio roadmap to legal structure.

Customer 2: Studio teams and founders

This is the operating muscle.

They’re not taking on single company risk, but they expect compensation, ownership, and impact.

Overpay and the model loses capital efficiency.

Underpay and you lose the talent edge that justifies the whole thing.

Customer 3: Entrepreneurs

Their expectations vary wildly.

To an exec exiting corporate life, 10% equity can feel exciting.

To a 25-year-old founder, it can feel like a non-starter.

Studios need different offers for different archetypes, salary versus equity preference, derisking versus control, support versus independence.

Customer 4: Follow-on capital

Many studios fail here.

“Build for venture,” they say, without defining what kind, what stage, or what investor expectations they’re designing for.

Seed funds care about team, velocity and early product-market fit and a captable aligned for Series A.

Series A VCs care about traction, ownership structure, and team strength.

PE firms care about cash flows and ops efficiency and rarely concern themselves with the captable since they buy the whole company.

Receivables financing cares about the quality of your contracts and customers, not your captable.

These aren’t interchangeable needs.

Studios that don’t reverse-engineer this part build companies that can't raise. Full stop.

Every one of these four customers matters.

Miss one, and the alignment cascade starts.

Get them right, and the model works in the outcome.

The Hidden Complexity Behind Venture Studio Success

Venture studios are one of the most compelling ideas in early-stage innovation.

They’ve quietly delivered higher net IRRs than traditional funds, and now manage tens of billions globally.

But behind those numbers is a level of operational complexity that’s rarely discussed.

Unlike most asset managers or company builders, studios have to serve four entirely different stakeholder types at once and do it through a single operating model.

→ Investors (who want top-tier returns with clear governance)
→ Operators (who drive execution and operations)
→ External founders (who need speed, capital, and trust)
→ Follow-on capital (who expect venture-scale outcomes)

Each one has different incentives, expectations, and timelines.

A traditional fund aligns investors and GPs.

A startup aligns founders and early hires.

A studio has to do both, and then some.

The result is a structurally harder business, even if the outcomes look better on paper.

When every single customer must say yes for the business model to work, the details are critical.

Execution depends not just on sourcing or building the right idea, but on architecture: How equity, incentives, and accountability flow between parties that don’t report to each other.

Studios that succeed don’t just back companies.

They solve an unusual systems problem: how to coordinate four customer groups that rarely share a playbook.

For more content like this, follow at (Matthew Burris)

The Hidden Complexity Behind Venture Studio Operations

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

Every venture studio is designing for something.

But not every studio makes that design process explicit.

You can't copy-paste deal structures from other studios and expect them to work. 

They only make sense when built on the right foundations.

→ Who is your target follow-on investor.. and what are their expectations?

→ What kind of entrepreneur are you trying to recruit… and how do they value risk and reward?

→ What return model are your studio's backers expecting… and how does that pressure allocation?

→ What norms dominate in your sector… and are you aligning with, or pushing against, them?

→ How capital-heavy is your business… and how early does real validation emerge?

→ Where are you operating… and how do local dynamics re-shape founder expectations?

→ What role are you playing… as a founder, co-founder, or something else entirely?

→ And most importantly, are you delivering on the role you’ve claimed—or just taking the equity and hoping no one notices?

Each of these is a design lever. When you pull one, the others move.

Ignore one, and the whole system gets distorted.

Case in point, Fractal. Experienced founders and staff. Solid thesis. Missed follow on expectations and a ripple effect of challenges. 

Check it out in detail:

https://lnkd.in/eEwEPEc6

The best studios don’t just balance these drivers. 

They design with intention so their structures can stand under pressure.

8 Drivers Behind a Smart Venture Studio Deal Structure

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

Venture studios aren’t for everyone

And they certainly don’t work like traditional startups

But most critics treat them as if they do

There’s a growing narrative that venture studios “don’t make sense” as an investment vehicle. 

And the skepticism is fair. 

But many critiques diagnose the wrong problems.

Start with the biggest one: focus.

Studio teams might test 100 ideas in 3 months, but not because they want more companies.

They’re trying to eliminate the bad ones quickly.

If something shows signal, the studio recruits a founder who becomes 100% focused on that company. 

They own the roadmap and the studio handles back office operations and shared resources.

Different jobs. Different priorities.

Another common myth?

That studios are high-volume idea machines.

The best ones aren’t.

They ship fewer companies because they’re more selective. 

Services bottleneck output, often by design.

You can’t scale conviction on command.

Every real studio decision ultimately comes down to a binary filter: 

Does this have an unfair advantage?

If yes, they go all in. If not, they kill it.

Because real studio outcomes aren’t driven by process… they’re driven by leverage.

This means that the successful studios have the right: 

Network. 
Talent bench. 
Access into a market that wouldn’t be possible outside the studio environment.

Those are the drivers that matter.

But many critics try to evaluate studios like regular startups.

And that’s the wrong lens.

A studio might look like one company on paper.

But economically, it behaves more like a fund:

    → Returns compound over time
    → Value accrues across a portfolio
    → Terms matter more than valuation

And if you're getting GP-like exposure (co-creator equity in every current and future build) it's a different category entirely.

None of this makes venture studios universally investible.

But when structured correctly, they’ve shown higher hit rates than seed funds; not because they have better ideas, but because they know which ideas deserve their leverage. 

If that leverage doesn’t exist, there’s nothing to back. 

But if it does, the model works in a way most critiques never address.

4 truths mot critiques miss.pdf

Most venture studios don’t fail from idea shortage or founder gaps

They fail from misalignment between customer groups. 

There are 4 customers every studio has to serve:

→ Founders
→ Investors
→ Staff/Operators 
→ Follow-on investors

And when you optimize for one in isolation, it comes at the expense of another.

The solution isn’t balance, it’s dependency mapping.

That starts by identifying how decisions made for one customer affect conditions for the others.

You can’t bring in a technical founder, pair them with a consumer idea, and expect it to work.

You can’t target both growth equity and early-stage VC and expect them to fund the same company.

These aren’t minor frictions, they’re structural constraints.

And the strongest studios work backwards from the capital market realities they want to access.

Instead of asking “what company to build,” they ask:

→ What type of investor do we want to attract in the next round?
→ What benchmarks and metrics does that investor expect?
→ What kind of company can deliver those inputs?
→ What kind of founder can build that company?
→ What kind of studio structure is required to support that founder?

This is the alignment stack.

And most breakdowns happen when studios try to climb it out of order.

Mapping dependencies also reveals where operational debt comes from.

Trying to serve both deeply technical founders and brand-first consumer operators?

You’ll likely miss the mark on operational model, hiring infrastructure, or go-to-market support for both.

No amount of workshops or sprints can patch over a model that isn’t designed to resolve customer constraints.

That doesn’t make the venture studio model flawed, it just makes it sensitive to coherence.

Studios will evolve through multiple iterations of their model, not despite this complexity, but because of it.

Alignment isn’t a one-time insight… It’s an ongoing design discipline.

The Alignment Framework Managing Customer.pdf

When a studio asks, “What’s the right deal structure?...

The answer is almost always: it depends.

But too often, there’s a chase for universal metrics.

A studio reads that someone took 25% at formation and assumes that they can do the same…

Even though:

→ That company might’ve had no pre-formation IP.
→ The studio might’ve handled everything from hiring to product.
→ Or it might’ve just handed off a memo and stepped back.

Equity alone doesn’t tell you that story.

Because there's no standard model, because there’s no standard studio.

Some operate like pre-seed funds.

Others embed deeply for years.

Some back ideas only once there’s founder-market fit.

Others start from domain-conviction and hire in.

And the capital requirements for an AI infra company are wildly different from a consumer social app.

So the structure has to match the stack: strategy, sector, stage, capital plan, team contribution.

You can’t shortcut that by copying numbers from a thread.

Instead, you should narrate your logic.

If a studio takes 15% on a late cofounder model with an additional 10% preferred stake from direct investment with governance rights, showing how that protects long-term alignment.

If it takes 40% on full-stack builds in heavy R&D sectors plus more preferred, explains how risk and operating lift are distributed.

There’s no single “correct” design, only coherence between who you are, what you build, and how your model supports it.

The best structures don’t follow market norms.

They follow the logic of the work and align with market acceptance. 

P.S. For more venture studio breakdowns like this one… 

Follow at Matthew Burris

Why most venture studio deals go wrong

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

CEO, MediaTech Ventures | Partner, Funded House

Experienced in economic development, public policy, and venture capital, with a focus on shaping the systems that enable entrepreneurship and innovation. Lead legislative and coalition strategy around issues impacting startups, capital formation, and civic infrastructure.

As founder of MediaTech Ventures, developed a media-first incubator model aligning early-stage companies with market strategy and public engagement. Background spans policy advocacy, economic ecosystems, founder support, and institutional relations.

Formerly Venture Partner at Meaningful Ventures and Director of Founder Institute Texas and Funded House, with experience aligning public, private, and civic sectors. Built the Texas Startups network to support regional development and coordinated stakeholder coalitions to influence innovation policy and funding priorities.

Advises governments, advocacy groups, and private sector leaders on how to lower systemic barriers, shape public opinion, and drive outcomes through legislative strategy and coalition building.

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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