In a strategic move reflecting the evolving landscape of American innovation, Mike Moradi, co-founder and general partner of Oklahoma City-based Cortado Ventures, is championing a distinct approach to venture capital, focusing on seed-stage frontier technology companies across the U.S. Midcontinent. Featured in the National Venture Capital Association’s (NVCA) "Meet a VC" series, Moradi’s firm is built on the conviction that transformative founders often emerge from within the critical industries they aim to disrupt, leveraging deep operational experience to address complex challenges. Cortado Ventures seeks to connect these industry-native entrepreneurs with essential capital, customer access, and a robust support network, thereby broadening the geographic footprint of American innovation.
A Founder’s Odyssey: From Setbacks to Strategic Investment
Mike Moradi’s journey into venture capital is deeply rooted in his extensive and often challenging entrepreneurial experiences. A six-time founder, Moradi navigated the intricate landscapes of biopharmaceuticals, nanotechnology, and other technically demanding sectors, accumulating invaluable lessons in company building. His entrepreneurial path began unconventionally, leaving dental school to launch his first venture—an endeavor that ultimately failed. Far from deterring him, this initial setback served as a formative crucible, instilling a profound resilience. Moradi often reflects on this period, emphasizing, "The lesson was to keep pushing past every obstacle, to not be discouraged by hearing the word ‘no,’ and to stay the course." This early experience underscored the critical importance of perseverance and unwavering commitment in the face of adversity, lessons he now imparts to his portfolio founders.
Subsequent ventures brought both rapid success and near-catastrophe. One company achieved swift growth and was acquired by a Fortune 100 corporation, validating his entrepreneurial instincts. However, a later San Francisco Bay Area startup, despite securing an $18 million Series B financing, teetered on the brink of collapse before its eventual acquisition. This latter experience delivered a crucial, albeit painful, insight: capital, while a powerful accelerant, can also magnify misdirection. Moradi succinctly articulates this lesson: "A high valuation and a full bank account will happily let you scale the wrong thing." This realization profoundly shaped his investment philosophy, highlighting the necessity of coupling entrepreneurial optimism with rigorous evidence, strategic discipline, and a clear understanding of a company’s foundational assumptions and next proven milestones.
Driven by a mission to extend the "Silicon Valley spark" beyond traditional tech hubs, Moradi co-founded Cortado Ventures in 2020 alongside a team of seasoned founders, CEOs, and operators. Their collective vision was to create the kind of firm they wished had existed during their own entrepreneurial endeavors – one that genuinely understood the multifaceted decisions founders face and offered support far beyond mere financial investment. This foundational principle of empathy and operational insight defines Cortado’s approach to partnership.
The Midcontinent Advantage: Proximity to Hard Problems
Cortado Ventures’ investment thesis is strategically anchored in the U.S. Midcontinent, a region often overlooked by mainstream venture capital but teeming with opportunities for deep technological innovation. This geographical focus is not arbitrary; the Midcontinent is home to foundational industries—energy, aerospace and defense, healthcare, manufacturing, mobility, and logistics—that are under immense pressure to modernize and evolve. These sectors operate within complex physical environments, established supply chains, and demanding regulatory frameworks, requiring transformative solutions that go beyond superficial software applications. True innovation here demands a profound, insider’s understanding of industry mechanics and pain points.
Cortado actively seeks out experienced technical founders who possess this intimate industry knowledge. These entrepreneurs typically have spent years embedded within hospitals, factories, laboratories, energy corporations, aerospace programs, or logistics networks. Their firsthand experience grants them unparalleled credibility with potential customers, deep insight into implementation challenges, and an understanding of operational nuances that would be nearly impossible to glean from outside the industry. This "insider advantage" is a cornerstone of Cortado’s investment strategy.
The Midcontinent itself provides a significant competitive advantage. The region offers unparalleled proximity to these critical industries and their potential customers, fostering a natural ecosystem for market validation and early adoption. Furthermore, it boasts a technically skilled workforce, often trained through robust state university systems and vocational programs, providing a talent pipeline that is both capable and cost-effective. Strong research institutions within the region contribute to a steady flow of intellectual property and innovative ideas. These factors, combined with comparatively lower company-building costs—a crucial consideration for seed-stage startups—create an attractive environment for sustainable growth. While specific figures vary, reports from organizations like PitchBook and NVCA have consistently shown a lower cost of living and doing business in Midcontinent cities compared to coastal tech hubs, enabling startups to extend their runway and achieve more with less capital.
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, energy, and mobility. This strategic focus is not based on the premise that Midcontinent founders deserve investment simply because they have historically been underserved by venture capital. Instead, it is predicated on the firm conviction that direct proximity to "hard problems" — complex, real-world challenges within established industries — inherently produces differentiated companies and robust financial returns. Moradi succinctly captures this belief: "Talent is not concentrated anywhere in particular. Capital and networks have just been slower to distribute than talent has." For Cortado, expanding the geographic reach of venture capital is not merely about identifying more founders; it is about unlocking unique sources of insight and innovation that traditional, geographically concentrated networks may have consistently overlooked.
Beyond Capital: Cultivating a Thriving Innovation Ecosystem
When Cortado Ventures launched, Moradi initially believed that the primary impediment to a burgeoning venture ecosystem in the Midcontinent was a simple shortage of capital. The firm quickly demonstrated its ability to identify and fund promising companies within the region, proving that viable investment opportunities were abundant. However, as Cortado matured and its understanding of the regional landscape deepened, Moradi’s perspective on the needs of founders evolved significantly. "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," he reflects.
This realization underscored that founders require a much broader spectrum of support than just financial investment. They need experienced operators who can provide hands-on guidance to help them avoid common, preventable mistakes. They need access to customers willing to pilot and adopt unproven technologies, acting as crucial early adopters. They need a network of investors prepared to provide patient, sustained support between major funding milestones. Crucially, they need a vibrant community where vital relationships—mentorships, partnerships, and collaborations—can organically form and flourish. Moradi emphasizes, "Money can accelerate a company. It cannot stand in for experience."
This expanded understanding profoundly shaped Cortado’s role within the broader Midcontinent ecosystem. The firm actively works to bridge gaps and connect disparate stakeholders: founders, funders, academic institutions, large corporations, policymakers, and technical experts. This commitment extends beyond its own portfolio companies, recognizing that a stronger, more interconnected ecosystem benefits all participants. Cortado’s initiatives include its annual Midcontinent Venture Capital Summit, a critical convening that brings together investors, limited partners, founders, and ecosystem leaders from across the nation to foster collaboration and knowledge exchange. The firm also partners closely with regional entrepreneurship organizations and The Verge, an Oklahoma City-based incubator and accelerator that provides essential company-building resources, programming, and capital connections. Each of these interactions serves as a potential catalyst, helping a founder secure a customer, find an adviser, recruit a key employee, forge a strategic collaboration, or attract an investor. Collectively, these relationships form the indispensable infrastructure that enables more companies to successfully launch, scale, and thrive, thereby creating a more resilient and dynamic regional economy. For Moradi, this is where venture capital’s impact transcends individual investments, creating a more robust pathway for entrepreneurs and ensuring that talent, capital, and innovation can effectively converge.
The Art of Disciplined Investment and Genuine Support
In the realm of early-stage venture capital, complete information is a luxury rarely afforded. Moradi candidly acknowledges this inherent uncertainty, stating, "Incomplete data is my job description." Rather than striving for an impossible elimination of risk, his approach centers on a disciplined methodology: he meticulously separates assumptions that can be immediately tested from those that will only be resolved over time. He identifies the critical conditions that must be true for a venture to succeed, rigorously considers how those conditions could be disproven, and carefully evaluates the cost and effort required to reach the next meaningful milestone.
Moradi’s strongest conviction typically centers on the founding team’s capabilities and resilience, the clarity and urgency of the customer problem they are addressing, and the company’s demonstrated rate of progress. He exercises greater caution when predicting the precise timing of an emerging market or foretelling the exact path a company might eventually take to an exit. This discipline becomes particularly vital when a financing round is moving quickly, as the allure of a compelling founder and a competitive process can generate immense pressure to make a swift decision before central investment assumptions have been thoroughly vetted. "A hard deadline is exactly when people stop asking uncomfortable questions," Moradi observes, underscoring the risk of superficial due diligence. When necessary, Cortado will deliberately slow down the process, bringing in independent scientific or technical experts to conduct deeper evaluations. This additional diligence can either significantly strengthen the firm’s conviction or, equally importantly, reveal a compelling reason to step away from an investment. Moradi notes that Cortado’s most robust founder relationships often begin with this level of scrutiny, as it sharpens strategic thinking and proactively identifies risks while there is still time to address them effectively. Importantly, slowing the decision-making process does not equate to a slow response to founders once a decision is made.
Moradi applies the same rigorous discipline to valuation. He champions a "sensible entry price" as a form of protection for all stakeholders: the founder, employees whose equity is at stake, and future investors. An aggressively high valuation, while appearing to be an immediate victory, can create unrealistic expectations. If the company’s subsequent progress fails to meet the lofty benchmarks attached to that initial number, the consequences can be severe, impacting founder ownership, employee equity pools, future fundraising options, and the company’s critical ability to adapt to market shifts. Moradi cautions, "The right number buys you options for years. In boom times, people forget that financial crises happen." He also acknowledges that VCs can, conversely, stifle a company with excessively low valuations, emphasizing that "balance is key." For Cortado, this discipline is not a reflection of a lack of belief in a founder’s ambition, but rather a strategic mechanism to provide an ambitious company with the essential flexibility and time it needs to truly succeed.
Cortado Ventures’ team, having themselves built, scaled, and successfully exited companies across many of the industries in which they now invest, brings a wealth of operating experience to their portfolio. This hands-on background profoundly shapes how they support founders when strategic plans inevitably shift or difficult decisions emerge. Moradi distills meaningful support into two core principles: "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, whether it involves helping rebuild a financial model, making a critical customer introduction, assisting in the recruitment of a senior executive, or taking responsibility for navigating a challenging board conversation. It also encompasses the difficult but necessary task of delivering uncomfortable truths when a company’s runway is shortening or its core strategy demands a pivot. Moradi, remembering his own time as a founder in such meetings, recalls, "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 has grown increasingly sophisticated. Portfolio companies now have access to a rich network of operating executives, industry specialists, expert advisers, prospective customers, experienced coaches, follow-on investors, and other founders within Cortado’s expansive network. The evolving needs of founders in the Midcontinent have also shifted. While capital scarcity once made Cortado’s investment and its ability to attract additional investors particularly valuable, today’s founders increasingly seek customer access, senior talent acquisition support, deep technical expertise, and, perhaps most importantly, individuals willing to offer candid and honest guidance. The firm’s role is never to usurp control from the entrepreneur; sometimes, the most valuable contribution an investor can make is simply knowing when not to intervene. As Moradi wisely states, "Other times, being helpful means staying out of the way."
Building Legacies: Beyond Fund Cycles
Moradi firmly believes that a venture firm’s responsibility extends beyond the immediate performance of its own portfolio companies and the duration of a single fund. "We must build things that outlast a single fund," he asserts. For Cortado, this translates into a dedicated commitment to strengthening the connective tissue among founders, funders, universities, corporations, and policymakers throughout the region. It also involves actively fostering the formation and growth of other investment firms within the Midcontinent, recognizing that a vibrant, diverse funding landscape benefits everyone. "This is not a zero-sum game," Moradi declares. "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 provides founders with a broader array of potential capital sources and expertise. It simultaneously creates more opportunities for investors to collaborate, co-invest, and participate in promising companies, thereby de-risking individual investments and increasing overall deal flow quality. Over time, this collective effort establishes a more durable and efficient pathway between regional innovation and national capital markets, ensuring that local successes can attract broader attention and larger follow-on investments.
Crucially, Moradi underscores that ecosystem building does not in any way diminish a firm’s primary fiduciary responsibility to its limited partners. His personal experience serving as a trustee and audit committee member for a state retirement system reinforced the paramount importance of being direct and transparent about investment risk, expected duration, and potential losses. "Ecosystem building matters, and it does not excuse any of us from being disciplined fiduciaries first," he emphasizes. This dual commitment to both regional development and rigorous financial stewardship is a hallmark of Cortado’s approach.
Moradi also views the NVCA as an indispensable part of the connective infrastructure that supports venture firms and founders nationwide. Policy issues such as capital formation, research commercialization, immigration policies affecting talent acquisition, government procurement processes, tax treatment of investments, and securities regulations are not abstract concepts. They directly influence whether an emerging manager can successfully raise a fund, whether a startup can attract the necessary talent, and whether a new technology can effectively 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. Participation in NVCA also provides Cortado with a vital platform to inject a Midcontinent perspective into national conversations about innovation, capital formation, and the future trajectory of the venture industry, ensuring that diverse regional voices are heard at the highest levels.
Expanding the Map of American Innovation
Moradi hopes that Cortado Ventures’ story can serve as a powerful narrative, helping to broaden public perception of the true breadth and diversity of American venture capital. While the industry’s largest, often coastal, firms tend to garner the most media attention, a substantial portion of venture capital activity is driven by smaller, specialized investors. These firms are writing early checks into niche industries, specific technologies, underserved communities, and emerging regions. "Most of VC looks nothing like the caricature," Moradi contends. "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 absolutely essential role in the innovation ecosystem. They are adept at identifying founders before their markets become obvious, connecting highly specialized knowledge with crucial early-stage capital, and providing hands-on guidance to help companies navigate the incredibly difficult period between a promising idea and a sustainable, scalable business. Moradi aptly summarizes this effort: "The hardest work happens after the money moves."
The current technological landscape, characterized by rapid advancements in artificial intelligence, automation, advanced manufacturing, energy innovation, biotechnology, and space technology, is making this work even more consequential. These breakthroughs are dramatically reducing the cost of attempting ambitious ideas, enabling small, agile teams to pursue opportunities that once required the vast resources of large corporations or national programs. Critically, many of these transformative teams will emerge in locations directly connected to the complex problems they are striving to solve, not just in established tech hubs.
This phenomenon underscores the broader, profound impact of expanding venture capital across America. When investors consciously look beyond their familiar networks and make the effort to meet founders where critical industries operate, they facilitate a cascade of positive outcomes. More innovative ideas are transformed into viable companies, more cutting-edge technologies successfully reach the market, and more communities actively participate in, and benefit from, the nation’s dynamic innovation economy. For Mike Moradi, the ultimate source of optimism lies with the audacious founders who are continually attempting what others deem impossible. "Never forget that we’re here for them. When we do this right, everyone, including humanity, wins," he concludes, encapsulating the profound mission that drives Cortado Ventures. The NVCA proudly includes Cortado Ventures among its members, recognizing their vital contribution to the venture ecosystem. To learn more about the firm, visit cortado.ventures.
