Matt Bjonerud - The Fog of War

Extreme Uncertainty

What do you know about the challenges of raising debt capital to finance the growth of a mid-market company?

In this episode, we spoke with Matt Bjonerud, CEO of Cerebro Capital, a Baltimore-based fintech startup. Matt spent the early part of his career in corporate banking with PNC, where he learned about the challenges mid-market companies face raising capital, as well as the challenges prospective lenders face in finding lending opportunities to the mid-market. Matt launched Cerebro Capital to simplify an opaque process that was ultimately hampering corporate growth for mid-market companies globally. In our conversation, we talk about Matt's early days as an entrepreneur and how his team got the company off the ground, and we discuss the strategies his team used to close the company's venture round just as COVID-19 began to hit. Matt also offers his perspectives on how startups can answer the call to action of the Black Lives Matter movement. Matt reveals the steps his team took to rethink their entire hiring process and how he overcame his own cognitive biases to build a more diverse team. You can check out all the innovative fintech products Matt and his team are building at https://cerebrocapital.com and you can follow them on Twitter @cerebrocapital.