Lance Anderson

Lance Anderson is a career entrepreneur and financial-services executive who co-founded Rondo Ventures in 2019 alongside Matt Lautz. The firm is a small, hands-on early-stage investment shop based in Kansas City that describes its model as "You bring the idea, we help with the execution" — pairing capital with active operational involvement from experienced founders. Anderson and Lautz market Rondo primarily to Midwest-based startups and, collectively, cite a track record spanning 40+ startup investments, one unicorn valuation, two IPOs, and multiple strategic acquisitions/exits.

Before venture investing, Anderson spent roughly two decades building NovaStar Financial (NYSE: NFI). He co-founded the company in 1996 and served as President, Chief Operating Officer, and a member of the Board of Directors, directing the firm's mortgage origination and servicing operations. He helped grow NovaStar into one of the larger publicly traded mortgage REITs in the country. In December 2007 he added the roles of Chairman and CEO after co-founder Scott Hartman departed, and he led the company through the financial crisis, including the 2007 sale of its servicing portfolio to Saxon Mortgage Services (a Morgan Stanley unit).

NovaStar was later renamed Novation Companies, Inc., where Anderson continued as Chief Executive Officer. He retired from the CEO role in 2015 after nearly 20 years leading the enterprise. His investor profiles summarize this career as having "founded and taken two companies public on the NYSE," reflecting a background heavily weighted toward company-building, public-markets experience, and operating leadership rather than traditional institutional VC.

Today Anderson operates as an angel/early-stage investor through Rondo Ventures, where he and Lautz function as generalist technology investors that lean on their own entrepreneurial experience to support portfolio founders.

• Stage: Concentrates on the earliest institutional rounds — pre-seed and seed — where operator involvement matters most.
• Check size: Writes early-stage checks in roughly the $50K–$250K range, clustering around ~$100K.
• Sectors: Software-centric — SaaS, web/marketplace businesses, and enterprise/business-productivity applications; broadly "technology" rather than deep-tech niches.
• Geography: Explicit Midwest tilt ("early-stage funding for Midwest-based startups"), consistent with the Kansas City base, while investing across the U.S.
• Value-add model: Stated thesis is "You bring the idea, we help with the execution" — Rondo positions itself as actively involved operators who help founders scale, not passive capital.
• What makes them say yes: Founders open to hands-on partnership from experienced operators who have themselves built, scaled, and exited companies.