The venture capital landscape, long synonymous with coastal hubs, is undergoing a significant transformation, with firms like Cortado Ventures at the forefront of decentralizing American innovation. In an insightful conversation as part of the NVCA’s "Meet a VC" series, Mike Moradi, co-founder and General Partner of Cortado Ventures, an Oklahoma City-based firm, illuminated the perspectives and convictions driving their investment strategy. Cortado Ventures focuses on seed-stage frontier technology companies across the U.S. Midcontinent, operating on a thesis that posits the most impactful founders are often those with deep, firsthand experience within critical industries. By bridging their invaluable insights with essential capital, customer access, and a robust support network, Cortado is actively expanding the geographical footprint of American innovation.
A Founder’s Journey: Lessons Forged in Fire
Mike Moradi’s path to venture capital is uniquely paved with the trials and triumphs of a serial entrepreneur. A six-time founder, Moradi navigated the complexities of launching and scaling companies across technically demanding sectors such as biopharmaceuticals and nanotechnology. His entrepreneurial odyssey began with a pivotal decision to leave dental school, a bold move that underscored his inherent drive to build. His very first venture, however, did not succeed. This initial setback, rather than deterring him, became a foundational lesson in resilience. "The lesson was to keep pushing past every obstacle, to not be discouraged by hearing the word ‘no,’ and to stay the course," Moradi reflected. This early experience instilled a profound understanding of the grit required to persevere against skepticism and adversity, a quality he now actively seeks in prospective founders.
Subsequent ventures demonstrated his acumen, with one achieving rapid growth and a successful acquisition by a Fortune 100 company. Another, a San Francisco Bay Area startup, nearly faltered despite securing a substantial $18 million Series B financing round before ultimately being acquired. This near-failure offered a different, equally critical insight: capital, while vital, is merely an accelerant. Its value is contingent upon a company’s readiness to scale and its trajectory in the right direction. Moradi succinctly summarized this lesson, stating, "A high valuation and a full bank account will happily let you scale the wrong thing." This experience underscored the importance of coupling entrepreneurial optimism with rigorous evidence, strategic discipline, and a clear understanding of the immediate, provable milestones.
Today, Moradi’s overarching mission is to infuse the "Silicon Valley spark" – a culture of innovation, risk-taking, and rapid iteration – into the Midcontinent. His approach to financing emphasizes the judicious sequencing and timing of capital, ensuring it serves to test assumptions, mitigate risk, and achieve meaningful progress, rather than prematurely inflate growth beyond validated proof points. This philosophy directly informed the founding of Cortado Ventures in 2020. Alongside a team of seasoned founders, CEOs, and operators, Moradi envisioned and built the kind of firm they wished had existed during their own entrepreneurial journeys: one deeply empathetic to founder challenges and capable of contributing far beyond a mere initial investment.
The Midcontinent Advantage: Unearthing Overlooked Potential
Cortado Ventures’ investment thesis is deeply rooted in the strategic advantages offered by the U.S. Midcontinent. This expansive region is home to a diverse array of foundational industries undergoing immense pressure to innovate and evolve. Sectors such as energy, aerospace and defense, healthcare, manufacturing, mobility, and logistics are characterized by complex physical infrastructures, entrenched supply chains, and demanding customer relationships. True transformation in these domains requires more than just a compelling software application; it necessitates an intimate understanding of their operational nuances.
Cortado actively seeks out experienced technical founders who possess this invaluable insider knowledge. These individuals might have spent years immersed in hospitals, factories, laboratories, energy companies, aerospace programs, or logistics networks, identifying persistent problems and envisioning novel solutions. Their deep-seated experience grants them unparalleled credibility with customers, crucial insight into implementation challenges, and a knowledge base that would be arduous to develop from an external perspective.
The geographical location itself becomes a competitive asset. The Midcontinent provides unparalleled proximity to these critical industries and their potential customers. Furthermore, the region boasts a technically skilled workforce, often nurtured by robust research institutions and universities. Complementary public funding initiatives further bolster the innovation ecosystem. Crucially, company-building costs in the Midcontinent are significantly lower compared to traditional coastal tech hubs. For instance, real estate, labor, and operational expenses can be 30-50% less than in Silicon Valley or New York, allowing startups longer runways and more efficient capital deployment.
This environment fosters a breadth of innovation reflected in Cortado’s diverse portfolio, which spans space communications, industrial safety, critical infrastructure cybersecurity, advanced manufacturing, healthcare, energy, and mobility. Cortado’s strategy is not predicated on a charitable allocation of capital to underserved regions. Instead, it is firmly built on the conviction that proximity to "hard problems" — complex, real-world challenges embedded in vital industries — can yield truly differentiated companies and generate superior returns for investors. As Moradi asserts, "Talent is not concentrated anywhere in particular. Capital and networks have just been slower to distribute than talent has." This perspective underscores a broader national imperative: expanding the geographic reach of venture capital is not merely about finding more founders, but about unlocking previously overlooked sources of insight, ingenuity, and economic growth.
Beyond Capital: Cultivating a Robust Ecosystem
When Cortado Ventures was established, Moradi initially perceived the primary impediment to a burgeoning venture ecosystem as a scarcity of capital. The firm’s early successes in identifying and funding promising regional companies validated the potential. However, as Cortado matured, Moradi’s understanding of founders’ needs evolved beyond mere financial injection. He realized that "Capital turned out to be necessary, and also nowhere close to sufficient."
Founders require a multifaceted support system: experienced operators to help them sidestep avoidable pitfalls, pioneering customers willing to embrace unproven technologies, patient investors committed to supporting companies between milestones, and a vibrant community conducive to forging critical relationships. "Money can accelerate a company," Moradi elaborated, "It cannot stand in for experience." This profound realization shaped Cortado’s expansive role within the broader Midcontinent ecosystem. The firm actively works to interconnect founders, funders, universities, corporations, policymakers, and technical experts, deliberately extending these relationships beyond its proprietary portfolio.
Cortado’s commitment to ecosystem building is evident in initiatives like its annual Midcontinent Venture Capital Summit, which convenes investors, limited partners (LPs), founders, and ecosystem leaders from across the nation. This summit has become a critical nexus for networking, knowledge exchange, and capital formation, drawing increasing attention to the region’s burgeoning potential. Furthermore, Cortado collaborates closely with regional entrepreneurship organizations and The Verge, an Oklahoma City-based incubator and accelerator. The Verge provides crucial company-building resources, specialized programming, and vital capital connections, fostering a pipeline of investable startups. Each interaction facilitated by Cortado, whether through a summit, an introduction, or a mentorship opportunity, contributes to a robust infrastructure that empowers more companies to successfully launch and scale. For Moradi, this systemic impact transcends individual investments, forging a stronger ecosystem that offers viable pathways for entrepreneurs and creates greater opportunities for capital, talent, and innovation to converge.
Disciplined Conviction: Navigating Early-Stage Uncertainty
Early-stage investing is inherently characterized by incomplete information. Moradi candidly acknowledges this reality: "Incomplete data is my job description." Rather than striving for an elusive certainty, his approach involves a disciplined methodology for managing uncertainty. He meticulously differentiates between assumptions that can be immediately tested and those that will only resolve over time. This involves identifying critical conditions that must hold true, rigorously considering how those conditions could be disproven, and meticulously evaluating the cost associated with achieving the next meaningful milestone.
Moradi’s strongest convictions typically coalesce around the founding team’s capabilities, the clarity and urgency of the customer problem being addressed, and the company’s demonstrated rate of progress. He maintains a healthy skepticism regarding predictions about the precise timing of emerging markets or the exact path a company might ultimately take to an exit. This discipline becomes paramount during rapidly moving financing rounds, where the allure of a compelling founder and a competitive process can generate immense pressure to make swift decisions before central investment assumptions have been thoroughly vetted. "A hard deadline is exactly when people stop asking uncomfortable questions," Moradi warns.
When necessary, Cortado deliberately slows down the process, engaging independent scientific or technical experts for deeper evaluation. This additional diligence either solidifies the firm’s conviction or, critically, reveals a compelling reason to step away. Many of Cortado’s most robust founder relationships have blossomed from this initial scrutiny, as it sharpens thinking and proactively identifies risks while there is still ample opportunity to address them. However, slowing the decision-making process does not equate to a sluggish response; rather, it ensures thoroughness.
Moradi applies similar discipline to valuation. He champions a "sensible entry price" as a crucial form of protection for all stakeholders: the founder, employees, and investors alike. An overly aggressive valuation can feel like an immediate triumph but can create significant long-term repercussions if the company’s subsequent progress fails to meet the inflated expectations. This can adversely affect founder ownership, dilute employee equity, constrain future fundraising options, and hinder a company’s crucial ability to adapt. Moradi emphasizes the cyclical nature of markets: "The right number buys you options for years. In boom times, people forget that financial crises happen." For Cortado, this discipline is not a reflection of diminished belief in a founder’s ambition, but rather a strategic mechanism to grant ambitious companies the flexibility and time essential for sustained success.
Strategic Partnership: More Than Just an Investor
Cortado Ventures distinguishes itself through a deeply operational approach to founder support, shaped by the team’s extensive experience in building, scaling, and exiting companies across the very industries in which they invest. This hands-on expertise proves invaluable when founders encounter unforeseen challenges or face difficult strategic decisions. Moradi encapsulates their philosophy of meaningful support in two 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 commitment translates into tangible actions, such as rebuilding a financial model to provide clarity, facilitating critical customer introductions, actively recruiting senior executives, or assuming responsibility for navigating a challenging board conversation. It also encompasses the courage to deliver uncomfortable truths when a company’s runway is shrinking or its strategic direction requires a fundamental shift. Moradi vividly recalls being the founder in such meetings: "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 ecosystem have matured, the firm’s founder support mechanisms have become increasingly sophisticated. Portfolio companies now have access to a rich network comprising operating executives, industry specialists, expert advisors, prospective customers, coaches, fellow investors, and other experienced founders. The needs of founders in the region have also evolved. While capital was once the scarcest resource, today they also actively seek customer access, senior talent acquisition, deep technical expertise, and candid, experienced guidance. Crucially, Cortado’s role is not to usurp control from the entrepreneur. Sometimes, the most valuable contribution an investor can make is recognizing when to step back. "Other times," Moradi noted, "being helpful means staying out of the way." This nuanced approach reflects a genuine partnership built on trust and mutual respect.
Building a Legacy: Sustaining Innovation Beyond a Single Fund
Moradi firmly believes that a venture firm’s responsibility transcends the confines of its own portfolio. "We must build things that outlast a single fund," he asserts. For Cortado, this translates into a proactive commitment to strengthening the connective tissue among founders, funders, universities, corporations, and policymakers throughout the Midcontinent. It also involves 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 explains. "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."
A larger, more interconnected investment community offers founders a wider array of potential capital sources and expertise. It simultaneously creates more opportunities for investors to collaborate and participate in promising companies, ultimately establishing a more durable pathway between regional innovation and national capital markets. While ecosystem building is vital, Moradi is equally clear that it does not supersede a firm’s fundamental responsibility to its limited partners. Having served as a trustee and audit committee member for a state retirement system, he gained firsthand appreciation for the imperative of being direct and transparent about investment risk, duration, and potential losses. "Ecosystem building matters, and it does not excuse any of us from being disciplined fiduciaries first," he stated.
Moradi also recognizes the National Venture Capital Association (NVCA) as a critical component of the connective infrastructure supporting firms and founders nationwide. Policy issues—such as capital formation, research commercialization, immigration policies affecting STEM talent, government procurement, tax treatment, and securities regulations—are not abstract concepts. They directly influence an emerging manager’s ability to raise a fund, a startup’s capacity to attract top talent, and a new technology’s potential 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 emphasized. Cortado’s active participation in the NVCA also ensures that a crucial Midcontinent perspective is brought to national conversations concerning innovation, capital formation, and the future trajectory of the venture industry.
Expanding the Innovation Map: A National Imperative
Mike Moradi hopes Cortado’s narrative helps illuminate the true breadth and diversity of American venture capital. While the industry’s largest, most publicized firms often capture the lion’s share of attention, the vast majority of venture capital activity is driven by smaller, specialized investors writing early checks into niche sectors, specific technologies, unique communities, and emerging regions. "Most of VC looks nothing like the caricature," Moradi observed. "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 specialized firms play an indispensable role in identifying founders before their markets become obvious, skillfully connecting specialized knowledge with essential capital, and guiding companies through the challenging chasm between a promising idea and a sustainable, thriving business. "The hardest work happens after the money moves," Moradi pointed out.
The advent of transformative technologies—including artificial intelligence, advanced automation, innovative manufacturing processes, breakthroughs in energy, biotechnology, and space technology—is significantly reducing the cost and barriers to attempting ambitious ideas. This paradigm shift empowers small, agile teams to pursue opportunities that historically demanded the immense resources of large corporations or expansive national programs. Critically, many of these pioneering teams will emerge in locations intimately connected to the complex problems they are endeavoring to solve.
This decentralization of innovation, propelled by firms like Cortado Ventures, represents a broader, profoundly impactful trend for America. When investors consciously look beyond familiar networks and engage with founders where critical industries operate, they catalyze the transformation of more ideas into viable companies, accelerate the market adoption of more technologies, and empower more communities to actively participate in the nation’s innovation economy. For Mike Moradi, the audacious founders who dare to attempt what others deem impossible remain the most compelling reason for profound optimism. "Never forget that we’re here for them. When we do this right, everyone, including humanity, wins."
Cortado Ventures’ strategic vision and hands-on approach underscore a powerful paradigm shift in the venture capital landscape, proving that deeply embedded, regional expertise can unlock significant value and drive innovation on a national scale. The NVCA proudly counts Cortado Ventures among its members, recognizing its vital contribution to expanding the map of American innovation. To explore Cortado Ventures further, visit cortado.ventures.
