Venture capitalist Matt Turck, who holds degrees from Sciences Po (also known as Paris Institute of Political Studies) and Yale Law School, has also had notable success in the startup world.
In 1999, Turck successfully co-founded TripleHop Technologies, which was acquired by Oracle in 2005. Turck stayed on after the acquisition, learning how operations ran for the corporation, but eventually went on to be the managing director at Bloomberg Ventures.
In 2013, Turck decided to make another career move, this time to FirstMark Capital, an early-stage VC firm founded in 2008 and based in New York City.
“So I loved it [at Bloomberg], but at the end of the day I prefer smaller, more nimble structures, and FirstMark Capital, in some ways, is still in startup phase itself, which I find very exciting,” TechCrunch quoted him saying, at the time.
Turck is now a partner and managing director at FirstMark, where he focuses on big data-driven products and hardware/software ventures, according to the company website.
Turck is also an occasional angel investor and has made personal investments in numerous startups, such as Dispatch, ThinkNear, Hullabalu, Memoir, Veri, Mortar Data and SideTour.
Each month, Turck organizes two large tech community events: Data Driven NYC and Hardwired NYC. He is also an active mentor in a several startup accelerator programs, as well as an advisor to several individual startups. See the mentor/advisor list below.
Sector Focus:
Big data, big data analytics, bridging online and offline, cloud computing, cloud data services, consumer Internet, data mining, deep information technology, developer APIs, education, finance, finance technology, financial exchanges, financial services, governments, hedge funds, Internet of Things, legal, M2M, marketplaces, mobile, news, quantified self, SaaS, telecommunications
Selected Investment:
Mentor/Advisor:
Condition One, Dreamit, Entrepreneurs Roundtable Accelerator, First Growth Venture Network, Geeklist, LiveMinutes, Lua, NYC Venture Fellows, R/GA Connected Devices Incubator, Techstars, First Growth Venture Network
Expertise:
Big data-driven products and hardware/software ventures
Media Links:
Blog
Twitter
LinkedIn
Facebook
Memorable Quotes:
On the Internet of Things: “Our relationship with our physical world is profoundly changing. Jawbone. Scales that tweet your weight. Connected pills that go into your body and tell you what’s happening. Our world is starting to look like a sci-fi movie. It’s happening now, and at a staggering pace.”
On Wearable Tech (after CES 2014): “It’s official, there are now more wearable wristband vendors than there are human wrists on the planet.”
On the Three Waves of Opportunities in Big Data: “First wave: Big data infrastructure. Right now the whole “big data” discussion is very much about core technology… Second wave: “Big data enabled” applications and features. As core infrastructure issues are gradually being resolved, the next logical step is to focus on expanding the benefits of big data to a broader, non-technical audience within the enterprise, and to more consumers online…Third wave: The emergence of “big data enabled” startups. The democratization of big data infrastructure tools will also open wide the opportunity for entrepreneurs, including those without a deep tech background, to dream up entire new businesses (and business models) based on data.
