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The 2016 Fintech Finance 35: Matthew Harris
No. 2 Venture capitalist Matthew Harris believes many entrepreneurs would do well to understand military strategy.


Venture capitalist Matthew Harris believes many entrepreneurs would do well to understand military strategy. “There is conflict in entrepreneurship,” says the Bain Capital Ventures managing director. “It ain’t apple pie. It is hard to disrupt with a bouquet of roses.” As head of BCV’s five-person fintech team, Harris has invested more than $250 million in what he calls financial insurgents. With such concepts as flanking (attacking from the side rather than head-on) and resource deployment in mind, the 43-year-old has advised the likes of upstart exchange operator IEX Group and human resources automation platform Justworks on how to compete against much bigger incumbents. “You don’t build a plan against the enemy’s current position; you build a plan against the enemy’s capabilities,” he explains. “That’s a military cliché, but a lot of entrepreneurs miss the point.” Harris’s obsession with military history began during his senior spring at Williams College, when he read The Price of Glory: Verdun 1916, the second book in Alistair Horne’s trilogy on 19th- and 20th-century conflicts between France and Germany. After graduating in 1994 with a BA in political economy, he spent a year at consulting firm Bain & Co. before moving to its private equity business. The first deal he worked on was the acquisition by Bain Capital and Thomas H. Lee Co. of TRW’s credit reporting business, later renamed Experian. In 2000, with backing from Bain, Harris co-founded Village Ventures to do early-stage investing. He rejoined Bain in 2012 to oversee Boston-based Bain Capital Ventures’ nine-person New York office. His biggest investment to date: $105 million in AvidXchange, a Charlotte, North Carolina–based company that he says “basically digitizes the invoice flow” for middle-market businesses, part of a $225 million September 2015 financing round led by BCV. Most recently, he invested $3 million in former World Gold Trust Services CEO William Rhind’s GraniteShares, a New York–based company that is building a platform to issue exchange-traded funds. BCV typically makes follow-up investments over time, generally averaging about $25 million per portfolio company.
![]() 2. Matthew Harris Bain Capital Ventures ![]() 3. Jane Gladstone Evercore Partners ![]() 4. James Robinson III & James Robinson IV RRE Ventures ![]() 5. Steven McLaughlin Financial Technology Partners ![]() 6. Amy Nauiokas & Sean Park Anthemis Group |
![]() 7. Richard Garman & Brad Bernstein FTV Capital ![]() 8. Gerard von Dohlen Broadhaven Capital Partners ![]() 9. Darren Cohen Goldman Sachs Group ![]() 10. Hans Morris Nyca Partners ![]() 11. Meyer (Micky) Malka Ribbit Capital ![]() 12. Maria Gotsch Partnership Fund for New York City |
![]() 13. Barry Silbert Digital Currency Group ![]() 14. Jay Reinemann Propel Venture Partners ![]() 15. Mariano Belinky Santander InnoVentures ![]() 16. Justin Brownhill & Neil DeSena SenaHill Partners ![]() 17. François Robinet AXA Strategic Ventures ![]() 18. Vanessa Colella Citi Ventures |
![]() 19. Michael Schlein Accion International ![]() 20. Kenneth Marlin Marlin & Associates ![]() 21. Rumi Morales CME Ventures ![]() 22. Alastair (Alex) Rampell Andreessen Horowitz ![]() 23. Steve Gibson Euclid Opportunities ![]() 24. Fabian Vandenreydt SWIFT |
![]() 25. Vladislav Solodkiy Life.SREDA ![]() 26. Gardiner Garrard III TTV Capital ![]() 27. Nektarios Liolios Startupbootcamp Fintech ![]() 28. Lawrence Wintermeyer Innovate Finance ![]() 29. Bina Kalola Bank of America Merrill Lynch ![]() 30. Hyder Jaffrey Fintech Innovation |
![]() 31. Calvin Choi AMTD Group ![]() 32. Janos Barberis FinTech Hong Kong ![]() 33. Jalak Jobanputra Future Perfect Ventures ![]() 34. Sopnendu Mohanty Monetary Authority of Singapore ![]() 35. Oskar Mielczarek de la Miel Rakuten FinTech Fund |