Over the past five years, Montana has seen exponential growth in venture capital investment. From 2015 to 2020, the state attracted over $500 million in early-stage funding. In the previous 20 years, that figure had been just $144 million.
Next Frontier Capital has played a central role in this growth. Founded in 2015 in Bozeman, Montana and focusing on the tech sector in Colorado, Utah and Montana, the fund invests in scaling companies up from concept to exit. In Montana alone, an infusion of $28.4 million from NFC has attracted an additional $174 million in outside funding.
Today on Can Do, Will Price and Michael FitzGerald join us for an update. Price, whom we last spoke with in 2019, is co-founder and general partner of Next Frontier Capital. FitzGerald, a guest in 2018, chairs the board of Submittable, a provider of submissions management software solutions. Submittable was one of the early beneficiaries of Next Frontier funding. Will and Michael help us examine the investment paradigm from both a funder and recipient perspective, and how the pandemic has influenced the process.
