Matt Nichols
General Partner at Commerce Ventures
San Francisco Bay Area
Overview
Work Experience
General Partner
2017 - Current
Commerce Ventures is a VC fund focused on innovation in the retail and financial services sectors.
Commerce Ventures is a venture capital firm focusing on investments in the e-commerce, retail, FinTech, and Insurance sectors
CEO
2011 - 2017
Matt was the CEO at Gemvara, a revolutionary eCommerce company that enables jewelry customization at scale. The company’s investors included Highland, Canaan, Balderton, and Norwest. Prior to becoming CEO, Matt was CFO and Chief Product Officer where he was responsible for engineering, product, finance, and analytics. Matt joined Gemvara when it had less than $1MM in revenue and helped drive significant growth in sales and achieved profitability. Achieved profitability 1.5 years after taking the CEO role. Efficiency improvements included the development of software to automate manufacturing and customer service and the optimization of marketing channels. These changes and the success of the new offerings quadrupled contribution margin in 2015, grew top-line revenue and enabled profitability in early 2016. In 2016, Gemvara was acquired by Berkshire Hathaway's (NYSE: BRK.A) jewelry group (Richline) and Matt became responsible for all digital efforts of the acquirer. Matt led the effort to build a digital hub to accelerate B2B sales launched its first private label program with a major jewelry retailer. Matt and the team also acquired a brand with >$1Bn in historical sales and re-launched it as a direct to consumer business.
Gemvara is an online shopping store delivering custom-made fine jewelry.
Raised $51,700,000.00 from Canaan Partners, Highland Capital Partners, Norwest Venture Partners and Balderton Capital.
Principal
2006 - 2011
Matt was a Principal at Highland focusing on information technology investments with a specialty in digital media, e-commerce and online marketing. Matt was actively involved with Bullhorn (acquired by Vista Equity), Pixable (acquired by SingTel) and Gemvara (acquired by Berkshire Hathaway).
Highland Capital Partners is a venture capital firm that offers seed, early and growth-stage funding solutions.
Corporate Development
2005 - 2005
Member of corporate development team. Evaluated digital media investments.
Google is a multinational corporation that specializes in Internet-related services and organizes the world’s information.
Raised $26,100,000.00 from Angel Investors LP, Kleiner Perkins, Signatures Capital, Sequoia Capital, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Shaquille O'Neal, Henry Kissinger, Google and Tiger Woods.
Venture Associate
2002 - 2004
Identified and managed investments in the technology sector. His investments included Avamar (acquired by EMC for $165MM), Tarari (acquired by LSI for $85MM) and Perceptive Software (acquired by Lexmark for $280MM).
Analyst
1999 - 2003
Matt was a member of Morgan Stanley’s Technology Corporate Finance group, where he was part of the Google IPO team and advised clients such as Dell and Intuit.
Morgan Stanley Venture Partners is a private equity firm that invests in high-growth companies in the technology and healthcare industries.