Baukunst | Matt Thoms
Matt Thoms is a co-founder and partner at Baukunst, a design-forward early-stage venture capital firm based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He brings an engineer’s mindset and a deep belief in intentional company-building to venture, emphasizing sustainability, collaboration, design, and ethics as foundational—not cosmetic—values. We spoke about Baukunst’s philosophy, the kind of founders they back, and the future he hopes they’re helping to shape.
Let’s start with Baukunst. What is it, and why did you start it?
We’re a new venture firm, started at the end of 2022. The team had been working together for years already—originally at another fund—and we spun out to focus on two core pillars: investing at the very earliest stage, and backing founders at the intersection of technology and design.
That means we’re often the first check in. Idea-stage. Pre-product. Sometimes we’re even involved in the ideation process. And that’s a really critical time—it sets the foundation. We like to say, “Go slow before you go fast.” Because once you start scaling, the cost of mistakes gets real. But early on, you’ve got room to experiment, iterate, and get the foundation right.
And the second pillar?
The tech-design intersection. We love teams that are fluent in deep tech, but also care deeply about how that tech reaches people. That’s where we see the opportunity—turning technical capability into something truly usable, well-designed, and impactful. Design, for us, is about intent. And we’ve seen what happens when things are built without intent.
What’s distinct about the way you operate?
We try not to operate like traditional venture. Three out of the four partners are engineers and we’ve all been backing startups for over 10 years. We’ve built hardware. We’ve built software. We’ve built teams. We know how long this game is, and how hard it is. We’re not interested in funding someone’s MBA project. We’re funding someone’s life’s work. We’re trying to back people who are swinging for something big but also something new—and who are serious about building it right.
How do you think about risk?
We’re early-stage. That’s the riskiest class of venture. And that gives us a kind of freedom. We don’t need to over-analyze whether something is going to return 2x or 3x. If you focus on helping founders build something genuinely impactful—something new and worthwhile—good things follow. We take risk seriously. And we are trying to create the conditions where that risk can turn into something remarkable.
If everything you’re setting out to do with Baukunst works, what does the world look like?
It’s hard to predict the specifics—and that’s part of the fun. But I think the big one is this: that the most valuable companies in the world aren’t run by toxic people, pushing broken incentives into culture and society. Instead, they’re deeply intentional, design-driven, equitable. You don’t build those overnight. It takes ten, fifteen years. But we want to be the coach in the corner helping make them possible.
And we want to do it in a focused, sustainable way. We want to stay small. Tight team. Real trust. Do our best work in close collaboration. That’s the ambition.
You’ve built a very design-forward brand. That’s rare in venture. Why does that matter?
Yeah, I mean, have you looked at most VC websites? It’s pretty grim. But for us, design isn’t cosmetic—it’s foundational. It signals that we care. That we’re intentional. That we take this seriously.
It’s also about matching the ambition of the founders we back. When someone’s putting their career on the line to build something new, they’re not doing it halfway. We want our presence—our brand—to reflect that same commitment.
What kinds of founders are you most excited to work with?
We love the folks who are fluent in both technology and human behavior. People who aren’t afraid of ambiguity. Founders who want to create markets—not just chase them. Brian Chesky from Airbnb: people rolled their eyes at him. RISD kid with no tech background. And then he rewrote the rules.
We’ve also seen it in our portfolio—companies like Bobbie, who’ve pushed the needle on things like parental leave and working-parent policies. It’s not always the flashy stuff, but it changes how the ecosystem works.
Where do you find these people?
A lot come through the Baukunst Collective—about 200 folks we’ve built relationships with over the years. Former founders, operators, really thoughtful people who help surface talent we might not otherwise see. We also run programming and events, like our Creative Technologist Conference. It all comes back to community. Great companies aren’t built solo.
You’re based in Cambridge. What keeps you here?
I came here for school, tried to leave a few times, but always came back. There’s a strong current of intellectual curiosity here. It’s human. Grounded. You walk into a room and people are curious, ambitious, but also decent. That matters. Especially when you’re building for the long haul.
Matt Thoms is a co-founder and General Partner at Baukunst, a collective of creative technologists advancing the art of building. They raised their inaugural venture fund in 2022, dedicated to leading pre-seed investments in companies at the frontiers of technology and design. Matt lives in Somerville, Massachusetts with his wife and two daughters.
Conversation transcribed and condensed by Chessin Gertler | Photography by Chessin Gertler