The National Venture Capital Association (NVCA) recently highlighted Mike Moradi, co-founder and General Partner of Cortado Ventures, in its "Meet a VC" series, underscoring the growing significance of venture capital ecosystems beyond traditional coastal hubs. Cortado Ventures, an Oklahoma City-based firm, is strategically investing in seed-stage frontier technology companies across the U.S. Midcontinent, championing a thesis that prioritizes founders with deep, intrinsic knowledge of critical industries. This spotlight illuminates a firm built by founders, for founders, dedicated not only to deploying capital but also to cultivating a robust and sustainable innovation landscape in America’s heartland.
A Founder’s Journey: The Genesis of Cortado’s Philosophy
Mike Moradi’s path to venture capital is a testament to the transformative power of entrepreneurial experience, forged through both exhilarating successes and sobering setbacks. His journey began unconventionally when he left dental school to launch his first company, an endeavor that ultimately failed. Far from deterring him, this initial failure instilled a profound resilience and an unwavering commitment to navigating obstacles. "The lesson was to keep pushing past every obstacle, to not be discouraged by hearing the word ‘no,’ and to stay the course," Moradi recounts, a mantra that would guide his subsequent ventures.
This foundational experience was followed by a rapid succession of entrepreneurial undertakings across diverse, technically complex sectors such as biopharmaceuticals and nanotechnology. His next company achieved swift growth and was successfully acquired by a Fortune 100 corporation, demonstrating his capacity for building value. However, a later San Francisco Bay Area venture, despite securing an $18 million Series B financing, nearly collapsed before eventually being acquired. This near-miss delivered a crucial, albeit painful, lesson: capital, while an accelerant, can also magnify misdirection. "A high valuation and a full bank account will happily let you scale the wrong thing," Moradi observed, emphasizing that speed is only beneficial when aligned with a proven, scalable business model.
These firsthand encounters with the highs and lows of company building profoundly shaped Moradi’s investment philosophy. He now dedicates as much thought to the strategic sequencing and timing of capital as he does to a company’s underlying technology. For him, financing should primarily serve to validate assumptions, mitigate risks, and enable founders to achieve tangible milestones, rather than fueling premature or unproven growth. This approach marries entrepreneurial optimism with rigorous evidence, discipline, and a clear understanding of the immediate next steps a company must prove. In 2020, Moradi co-founded Cortado Ventures with a team of seasoned founders, CEOs, and operators, united by a shared vision to create the kind of supportive, insightful firm they wished they had encountered during their own entrepreneurial careers.
The Midcontinent Advantage: Unearthing Frontier Technology
Cortado Ventures’ investment thesis is firmly rooted in the conviction that the U.S. Midcontinent, often overlooked by traditional venture capital, possesses a unique competitive advantage in fostering transformative frontier technology. This region is home to a concentration of critical legacy industries – including energy, aerospace and defense, healthcare, manufacturing, mobility, and logistics – all facing immense pressure to evolve and innovate. The firm believes that the most impactful founders in these sectors are often those who have spent years immersed within them, understanding their intricate complexities, established supply chains, and demanding customer dynamics.
This "insider" advantage is central to Cortado’s strategy. The firm actively seeks technical founders who possess deep domain expertise, gained from working within hospitals, factories, laboratories, energy companies, aerospace programs, or logistics networks. This intimate understanding provides them with unparalleled credibility with customers, crucial insights into implementation challenges, and a knowledge base that would be exceedingly difficult to acquire from outside the industry. For example, in the energy sector, the Midcontinent is not only a hub for traditional oil and gas but also increasingly for new energy technologies, including renewables, carbon capture, and advanced materials for grid modernization. Similarly, its aerospace and defense cluster benefits from government contracts and a skilled engineering workforce, making it fertile ground for innovations in space communications or advanced manufacturing for defense applications.
The geography itself reinforces this investment advantage. The Midcontinent offers strategic proximity to these vital industries and their potential customers, alongside a technically skilled workforce, robust research institutions, and complementary public funding initiatives. Furthermore, the region boasts significantly lower company-building costs compared to coastal tech hubs, allowing startups to extend their runway and achieve more with less capital. According to PitchBook data, while coastal regions still dominate VC funding, the Midcontinent has seen a steady increase in venture activity over the past five years, with states like Oklahoma, Kansas, and Arkansas experiencing double-digit percentage growth in capital deployed. This trend highlights a broader national recognition of the untapped potential and cost-efficiency these regions offer.
Cortado’s diverse portfolio exemplifies the breadth of innovation emerging from this environment, with investments spanning space communications, industrial safety, critical infrastructure cybersecurity, advanced manufacturing, healthcare, and mobility. The firm’s strategy is not merely predicated on addressing historical underfunding in the Midcontinent. Instead, it is driven by a profound conviction that direct proximity to "hard problems" in critical industries inherently produces differentiated companies and robust financial returns. As Moradi succinctly puts it, "Talent is not concentrated anywhere in particular. Capital and networks have just been slower to distribute than talent has." By expanding the geographic reach of venture capital, Cortado is not just finding more founders; it is uncovering invaluable sources of insight and innovation that traditional networks have historically overlooked, thereby fostering national economic resilience and technological leadership.
Beyond Capital: Cultivating a Robust Innovation Ecosystem
When Cortado Ventures launched, Mike Moradi initially believed that the primary constraint facing nascent venture ecosystems like the Midcontinent was a simple shortage of capital. The firm successfully demonstrated that promising companies could indeed be identified and funded within the region. However, as Cortado matured and its understanding deepened, Moradi’s perspective on the true needs of founders evolved significantly. He recognized that capital, while undeniably necessary, was far from sufficient to build a thriving, self-sustaining innovation hub.
"Five years ago, I would have said the limiting reagent in a young ecosystem was capital. Capital turned out to be necessary, and also nowhere close to sufficient," Moradi reflected. He realized that founders require a comprehensive support system: experienced operators to help them sidestep common pitfalls, early-adopter customers willing to test unproven technologies, patient investors prepared to bridge gaps between milestones, and a vibrant community where crucial relationships can organically form. "Money can accelerate a company," Moradi stated, "It cannot stand in for experience."
This critical realization profoundly shaped Cortado’s expansive role within the broader Midcontinent ecosystem. Rather than hoarding relationships and resources exclusively for its portfolio companies, Cortado actively works to connect a wide array of stakeholders: founders, funders, universities, corporations, policymakers, and technical experts. These ecosystem-building efforts are multifaceted and impactful. The firm hosts the annual Midcontinent Venture Capital Summit, a key event that convenes investors, limited partners, founders, and ecosystem leaders from across the nation, fostering collaboration and visibility for the region. Cortado also partners with regional entrepreneurship organizations and The Verge, an Oklahoma City-based incubator and accelerator that provides essential company-building resources, programming, and vital capital connections.
Each of these interactions serves as a potential catalyst, helping a founder discover a crucial customer, secure an invaluable adviser, recruit a senior employee, find a strategic collaborator, or attract a new investor. Collectively, these interconnected relationships forge the essential infrastructure that enables more companies to successfully launch, scale, and thrive. The implication for the region is profound: a stronger ecosystem reduces reliance on external resources, cultivates local talent, and diversifies the economy. According to a study by the Kauffman Foundation, robust entrepreneurial ecosystems significantly increase job creation and economic growth, with every dollar invested in startups generating several times its value in local economic activity over time. For Moradi, this ecosystem-centric approach means venture capital’s impact extends far beyond the financial returns of a single investment, creating a more viable and equitable path for entrepreneurship and innovation throughout the Midcontinent.
Disciplined Conviction: Cortado’s Investment Principles
Investing at the seed stage, particularly in frontier technology, inherently involves navigating environments characterized by incomplete information. "Incomplete data is my job description," Moradi states, acknowledging the inherent uncertainty. Cortado’s investment philosophy is not about eliminating this uncertainty, but rather about methodically managing it. The firm rigorously separates assumptions that can be immediately tested from those that will only resolve over time. This involves meticulously identifying the critical conditions that must be true for a venture to succeed, actively considering how those conditions could be proven false, and carefully evaluating the cost and resources required to reach the next meaningful milestone.
Cortado’s strongest conviction typically centers on three core pillars: the founding team’s capabilities and vision, the genuine existence and urgency of the customer problem being addressed, and the company’s demonstrated rate of progress. Conversely, Moradi maintains a more cautious stance regarding predictions about the precise timing of an emerging market or the exact path a company might eventually take to an exit. This disciplined approach becomes especially critical during rapidly moving financing rounds, where the allure of a compelling founder and a competitive process can generate intense pressure to make swift decisions before core investment assumptions have been thoroughly vetted. "A hard deadline is exactly when people stop asking uncomfortable questions," Moradi warns.
To counteract this pressure, Cortado is prepared to deliberately slow down the investment process when necessary, often engaging independent scientific or technical experts to bolster their evaluation. This additional diligence serves a dual purpose: it can either fortify the firm’s conviction, providing a stronger foundation for investment, or reveal critical red flags that necessitate stepping away. Interestingly, Moradi notes that Cortado’s most robust founder relationships often originate from this very scrutiny, as it sharpens strategic thinking and allows for the identification and proactive addressing of risks while there is still ample time to do so. However, slowing the decision-making process does not equate to slowing the responsiveness once a commitment is made.
Moradi applies a similar discipline to valuation, viewing it not just as a price point but as a strategic tool for long-term health. "A sensible entry price is a form of protection for the founder, employees, and investors alike," he emphasizes. An overly aggressive valuation, while initially feeling like a victory, can impose unrealistic expectations. If a company’s progress fails to meet the lofty benchmarks attached to that high valuation, the consequences can be severe, impacting founder ownership, employee equity, future fundraising options, and the company’s crucial ability to adapt to unforeseen challenges. Moradi cautions, "The right number buys you options for years. In boom times, people forget that financial crises happen." This perspective is particularly relevant given recent market corrections, where overvalued startups have struggled to raise subsequent rounds without significant down rounds. For Cortado, this discipline is not a reflection of a lack of belief in a founder’s ambition; rather, it is a pragmatic strategy to provide an ambitious company with the essential flexibility and time it needs to truly succeed, weathering market cycles and unforeseen headwinds.
Operational Support: The Value of "Work Already Done"
Cortado Ventures distinguishes itself through a hands-on, deeply engaged approach to founder support, a methodology directly informed by the team’s extensive operating experience. Having built, scaled, and successfully exited companies across many of the industries in which they now invest, Cortado’s partners bring practical, battle-tested insights to the table. This experience is invaluable when founders encounter unexpected challenges, strategic pivots, or difficult decisions.
Moradi encapsulates this meaningful support in two key words: "Speed and specificity." He elaborates, "Answer in hours rather than days and show up with work already done instead of advice. Better yet, pick up the phone." This philosophy translates into proactive, tangible assistance. Cortado’s team might rebuild a complex financial model, leverage their extensive network to make a critical customer introduction, actively assist in recruiting a senior executive, or take responsibility for navigating a sensitive or difficult board conversation. Crucially, it also means being willing to deliver uncomfortable truths when a company’s runway is shortening or its strategic direction demands a fundamental change. Moradi, recalling his own time as a founder in such meetings, remembers, "What helped was someone who lowered the temperature, told the truth to me and the board, and followed up after the meeting."
As Cortado and the surrounding Midcontinent ecosystem have matured, the firm’s founder support has become increasingly sophisticated and expansive. Portfolio companies now have access to a rich network comprising operating executives, industry specialists, advisers, prospective customers, coaches, and a peer group of other founders. This multi-layered support system addresses the evolving needs of entrepreneurs. While initially, the scarcity of capital in the region made Cortado’s direct investment and ability to attract co-investors particularly valuable, today, founders increasingly seek customer access, senior talent acquisition, deep technical expertise, and candid, experienced guidance.
Cortado’s role is not to usurp control from the entrepreneur; rather, it is to empower them. The firm understands that sometimes the most valuable contribution an investor can make is the wisdom to know when not to intervene. "Other times," Moradi concludes, "being helpful means staying out of the way." This nuanced approach ensures that support is provided precisely where and when it is most needed, respecting the founder’s vision and autonomy while providing a critical safety net of operational expertise. This proactive, yet discerning, support model significantly enhances the probability of success for frontier technology companies in the Midcontinent, translating directly into stronger companies and more impactful innovations.
Building a Legacy: Sustaining Innovation Beyond Fund Cycles
Mike Moradi articulates a profound belief that a venture firm’s responsibility extends far beyond the confines of its own portfolio or the lifecycle of a single fund. "We must build things that outlast a single fund," he asserts, envisioning a lasting legacy that strengthens the entire innovation landscape. For Cortado Ventures, this translates into a dedicated commitment to fortifying the connective tissue among founders, funders, universities, corporations, and policymakers across the Midcontinent. It also means actively fostering the formation and growth of other investment firms within the region, rather than viewing them as competitors.
"This is not a zero-sum game," Moradi emphasizes. "We want to enable a dozen other firms in our geography, and bring in outside funds for later rounds. We need to create scalable structures where everyone can win." This collaborative approach is strategic. A larger, more interconnected investment community provides founders with a broader array of potential capital sources and expertise. It creates more opportunities for investors to co-invest and participate in promising companies, thereby diversifying risk and amplifying impact. Over time, such an environment establishes a more durable and efficient pathway between regional innovation and national capital markets, attracting further investment and talent.
However, Moradi is quick to balance this ecosystem-building ambition with an unwavering commitment to fiduciary duty. His experience as a trustee and audit committee member for a state retirement system instilled in him the paramount importance of being transparent and direct about investment risk, duration, and potential losses. "Ecosystem building matters, and it does not excuse any of us from being disciplined fiduciaries first," he states, underscoring that long-term sustainability for the ecosystem is ultimately predicated on delivering strong returns to limited partners.
Moradi also recognizes the critical role played by organizations like the NVCA in supporting firms and founders nationwide. Policy issues such as capital formation, research commercialization, immigration policies, government procurement, tax treatment, and securities regulations are not abstract concepts. They directly influence the ability of an emerging manager to raise a fund, a startup to attract top talent, and a new technology to reach the customers and institutions that desperately need it. "NVCA helps each of us make policy concrete and stay on top of the issues that matter in D.C. and beyond," Moradi notes. Furthermore, Cortado’s active participation in the NVCA provides a vital platform to inject a Midcontinent perspective into national dialogues concerning innovation, capital formation, and the future trajectory of the venture industry, ensuring that diverse regional voices are heard and considered.
Redefining American Innovation: The Broader Impact
Mike Moradi hopes that the story of Cortado Ventures will serve as a powerful narrative, broadening the public’s perception of American venture capital. The industry’s largest, most visible firms often dominate headlines, yet, as Moradi points out, "Most of VC looks nothing like the caricature. The bulk of the industry is small firms writing early checks into some niche, be it industrial, geographic, demographic, or otherwise. And a VC firm is also a startup until fund 3 or 4." These smaller, specialized firms, like Cortado, play an indispensable role in the innovation ecosystem. They are adept at identifying nascent founders before their markets become obvious, connecting highly specialized knowledge with crucial capital, and guiding companies through the arduous period between a promising idea and a sustainable, thriving business. "The hardest work happens after the money moves," Moradi emphasizes.
The current technological landscape further amplifies the significance of these regional players. Breakthroughs in artificial intelligence, automation, advanced manufacturing, energy innovation, biotechnology, and space technology are dramatically reducing the cost and barriers to attempting ambitious ideas. What once required the immense resources of a large corporation or a national program can now be pursued by lean, agile teams. Many of these innovative teams are naturally emerging in regions closely connected to the very problems they are striving to solve, such as the industrial heartland of the Midcontinent.
This decentralization of innovation, facilitated by regional venture capital, has a profound broader impact on the American economy. When investors consciously look beyond familiar networks and actively seek out founders where critical industries operate, they achieve several vital outcomes. More groundbreaking ideas are successfully transformed into viable companies, more essential technologies are brought to market, and more communities gain the opportunity to actively participate in and benefit from the country’s innovation economy. This not only fosters economic growth but also strengthens national competitiveness and resilience by diversifying the sources of technological advancement.
For Moradi, the ultimate source of optimism lies with the founders themselves – those audacious individuals who dare to attempt what others deem impossible. "Never forget that we’re here for them. When we do this right, everyone, including humanity, wins," he concludes, articulating a vision where strategic capital, operational support, and a robust ecosystem converge to unlock the full potential of American innovation, one region at a time. Cortado Ventures, as a proud member of the NVCA, stands as a testament to this evolving landscape, demonstrating how focused, founder-centric investment in America’s heartland is not just good business, but a critical engine for the nation’s future.
