Are you ready to scale?

Portfolio

Investment Approach

Stage

We invest when a company has found its product-market fit and is ready to scale. Software, hardware and services companies should have deployed a version of their solution to early adopters and should be able to demonstrate an understanding of their sales process and the market’s willingness to pay. Life sciences companies should have generated data that validate the efficacy of their solution, and should understand their development costs, regulatory pathway and potential partners.

Amount

Our initial investments are generally part of a large Seed round, in which the company is raising $1 million to $5 million to enable at least 18 months of runway. In these rounds, we will typically invest between $200,000 - $500,000, and we can often help identify additional investors if needed. In most cases, we expect that the company will require additional investment in the coming years, and we therefore reserve sufficient capital to participate in the follow-on rounds of our best-performing portfolio companies.

Sectors

Over the past two decades, we’ve invested in a wide variety of technologies and industry sectors, ranging from software to life sciences and everything in-between. In general, we’re looking for ideas that have the potential to disrupt billion-dollar markets, and teams that possess a deep understanding of the sectors in which they compete.

Location

We meet and communicate frequently with our portfolio companies, and prefer to invest within a 6-hour driving distance from our offices in Pittsburgh, PA and Morgantown, WV. We target the “greater Appalachian” region, including West Virginia, central & western Pennsylvania, eastern Ohio, eastern Kentucky, western Maryland, western Virginia, western North Carolina and eastern Tennessee.

Our Team

Mike Green
Co-Founder & Managing Director

Mike Green leads Mountain State Capital’s Morgantown, West Virginia office and is an experienced early stage investor, successful technology executive, and community leader in the greater Appalachian region.

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Since 2002, Mike has focused on investing in and advising a portfolio of early stage companies, including companies that were ultimately acquired by IBM and Target. Mike’s prior operational experience includes serving as the President of Field Operations for Marc Andreesen’s LoudCloud, Inc., and a decade managing worldwide sales and marketing for Pittsburgh-based FORE Systems, Inc. until its acquisition by Marconi for $4.5 Billion. Mike began his career as a cryptanalyst at the NSA after earning his B.S. in mathematics from Boston University and a Master's in numerical science from Johns Hopkins University.

Matt Harbaugh
Co-Founder & Managing Director

Matt Harbaugh leads Mountain State Capital’s Pittsburgh office and has invested in, managed and advised more than 100 private companies over the past twenty years.

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Matt previously served as the CEO of a machine learning-based software company that was acquired by Facebook, and was the Chief Investment Officer at Innovation Works, one of the most active seed funds in the United States. Matt began his career as an investment banker after receiving his J.D. and M.B.A. degrees from the George Washington University and his undergraduate degree from Duke University.