Backing Wisconsin's Earliest Venture-Scale Founders

We partner with founders who see something others don't. We write the first institutional check and back ambitious Wisconsin founders who see what others don't, turning earned insight into opportunity.

Pitch Us

Investing In Founders Before Consensus

The best companies are often built long before the rest of the market recognizes the opportunity. We believe exceptional founders develop insights through experience, identify opportunities others overlook, and create value by acting before consensus forms.

01

First-In Capital

We deploy capital in a company's first funding round as a lead investor. Our typical check size is $500k and we hold reserves for follow-on capital.

02

Industry & Technology Agnostic

We invest in pre-revenue and prototype stage companies across a broad range of industries, technologies, and products.

03

We know what it takes to build companies from the ground up. Mastercraft Ventures was founded by people who have started, scaled, and sold companies.

Why We Win

Mastercraft Ventures at a Glance

Mason Cook

Founder and Managing Director

Mason has spent more than a decade building startups from multiple vantage points—as an early employee, executive, founder, and investor. Prior to launching Mastercraft Ventures, he served as President of RealityBLU, a venture-backed software company, led startup accelerator programs supporting hundreds of entrepreneurs, and worked at a fintech company that raised more than $60 million in venture capital.

Mason graduated from Columbia Business School and Iowa State University.

Constructive Collaborators

We bring perspective, experience, and support to help founders gain clarity, move with speed, and expand their optionality.


Agile Advantage

We move quickly, iterate often, and adapt to new information. Through rapid iteration and growth sprints, we help founders build momentum.

Constructive
Collaborators

Mastercraft Ventures Ethos

We believe mastery is a constant pursuit. We continually refine our craft, challenge our thinking, and become better partners to the founders we back.

We bring perspective, experience, and support to help founders gain clarity, move with speed, and expand their optionality.

We move quickly, iterate often, and adapt to new information. Through rapid iteration and growth sprints, we help founders build momentum.

Agile
Advantage

Mastercraft
Ventures Ethos

We believe mastery is a constant pursuit. We continually refine our craft, challenge our thinking, and become better partners to the founders we back.

What we look for

We believe founders who have lived a problem are best positioned to solve it. Insight earned through experience creates advantages that can't be replicated through market research or trend chasing.

Tell Us What You're Building

    • First institutional funding round (typically, this means pre-seed or seed)

    • At least one full-time founder at time of investment

    • We prefer to invest in pre-revenue companies with some evidence of market adoption and a prototype

    • Motivated by an efficient exit of $25-$50M+ (vs. $1B+ exit over a long period of time)

    • During the due diligence process, we primarily focus on four areas: People, Market, Product, and Return Potential

    • We aim to be the first institutional investor in a company

    • Our initial check size ranges from $250k-$500k

    • We prefer to lead the first funding round and work with the entrepreneur to align terms with their strategy

    • We reserve follow-on capital for future funding rounds in our portfolio companies

    • We primarily invest in Wisconsin-based founders

    • We prefer to invest in QNBV-eligible companies

    • Mastercraft Ventures is an industry agnostic investor and will consider companies building software, hardware, or products across any sector

    • We typically avoid investing in capital-intensive companies with capital requirements greater than $10-20M+ across all rounds of funding

    • We are also probably not the right fit for lifestyle, real estate, or main-street businesses