Matthew Nordgren

Matthew Nordgren is the Founder and CEO of Arcadian Capital Management (Arcadian Fund), a venture capital firm he launched in December 2017 that focuses on the ancillary, non-plant-touching side of the cannabis and hemp industries. Before becoming an investor, Nordgren was an athlete: he attended the University of Texas at Austin (Red McCombs School of Business), where he played quarterback for the National Championship–winning Texas Longhorns. He has been described as the first full-scholarship player in University of Texas football history to graduate with two degrees in under four years, and he briefly played professionally in the NFL with the Detroit Lions and Philadelphia Eagles before an injury ended his playing career. He subsequently earned two master's degrees — in business administration and in sports management — from the University of Dallas.

Across his career, Nordgren's work has spanned real estate, sports, entertainment, hospitality, insurance, and financial services. Speaker biographies state he has personally been involved with over $4 billion in transactions and oversees a portfolio of roughly 35-plus companies. In addition to Arcadian, he founded Nordco Consulting, focused on middle-market business development.

At Arcadian, Nordgren built a team drawn from institutional and family-office investor backgrounds, positioning the fund as a disciplined, "servant-leadership"-oriented growth investor in a young and volatile sector. He has been recognized as one of High Times Magazine's "Top 100 Most Influential People in the Cannabis Industry" and was ranked #3 globally by Business Insider among investment firms focused on the emerging cannabis and hemp sectors. He is a frequent conference speaker (SXSW, NATPE Global, and various family-office and wealth-management conferences) and founded The Leadership Foundation, a nonprofit supporting at-risk youth through sports and education.

• Invests in early-to-growth-stage companies, concentrating on Series A and B rounds where businesses have product-market fit and need capital to scale.
• Check sizes of $250K–$25M, with a typical sweet spot near $1M.
• Targets the ancillary / non-plant-touching segment of cannabis and hemp — healthcare, media, life sciences, AgTech, supply-chain infrastructure, and data/technology services — rather than plant-touching cultivation.
• Stated thesis (Signal/NFX): provides "investors and asset allocators who are looking for exposure to the Cannabis/Hemp industry through a proven and dedicated management team," via a "growth-stage investment platform in order to take advantage of the industries emerging opportunities."
• Explicitly avoids very early-stage companies, public companies, and debt financing.
• Emphasizes profit with purpose — ESG integration, environmental sustainability, and revitalizing communities affected by the War on Drugs. In his words: "We view ourselves as a leader, because we understand what it means to serve. Servant leadership is the key to long-term success."
• On sector direction: "The next evolution for the sector is to see the B2B businesses scale and consolidate while the B2C sector is just starting to find its own lane."