Matias brings a rare perspective to early-stage investing: he spent years at Goldman and Bank of America helping late-stage and public companies raise hundreds of millions in capital before joining Harpoon Ventures to focus on pre-seed through Series A. That background gives him a clear-eyed view on what founders get wrong about storytelling and financial positioning. His core thesis on pitch decks is refreshingly simple: he cares about founders and market, and almost nothing else at the early stage. He actively discourages founders from including detailed revenue projections or elaborate TAM slides, arguing that speculative financials can actually work against you because investors will anchor to those numbers later. Instead, he wants to see a narrative arc: what's the problem, why hasn't anyone solved it, and what makes your technology the unlock.

One of his most practical insights is about team slides, which he says are one of the most commonly botched elements of a pitch deck. The mistake he sees constantly is founders listing their name, title, and a few company logos with zero context. He points out that without a brief explanation of what you actually did at those companies, investors will fill in the blanks themselves, and usually not in your favor. He'd rather see a first-time founder with no brand-name experience write two honest sentences about their connection to the problem than see a wall of impressive logos with no substance behind them.

Matias also offers sharp advice on the late stages of fundraising. When a round gets oversubscribed and founders have to make hard choices about their cap table, he urges radical transparency: email each investor individually, explain the situation honestly, and ask if they'd be willing to adjust their check to make room. He warns against the temptation to over-optimize for ownership percentages or valuation at the earliest stages, pointing to the Silicon Valley joke about a founder wishing he'd taken a lower valuation. His parting advice is equally grounded: think of each fundraise not as an isolated event but as one leg of a lifelong capital-raising journey, and give yourself real margin for error on how much money you'll need to hit your next milestone, especially if you're building hardware.