Mike Madden

Mike Madden is a Chicago-based finance and investment professional who spent roughly five years (circa 2016–2021) as a Principal at Method Capital, a Chicago venture capital firm focused on B2B technology companies, primarily in the Midwest. At Method, his work spanned deal sourcing and due diligence as well as hands-on support for portfolio company leadership teams across financial planning, marketing, recruiting, fundraising, M&A, and exits. Method Capital was the lead investor in SpiderOak, a company Madden came to know well from the investor side.

Before Method, Madden built his career as a public-markets equity analyst. He began at Talon Asset Management, and after Talon's sale to Bank of New York Mellon, he served as an equity analyst at BW Capital Partners and Cloud Gate Capital, covering technology, media and telecom (TMT), healthcare, and real estate. (BW Capital was founded by Bill Wolf, who also co-founded/leads Method Capital — a through-line in Madden's career.)

In June 2021, Madden left the investor seat to become Vice President of Finance at SpiderOak, one of Method's portfolio companies, leveraging his prior investor familiarity with the business. He has since moved to Runway Financial (an FP&A platform for high-growth companies), where he serves as Head of Finance.

He earned a BS in Finance, with honors, from DePaul University (2005–2009), where he was active in the university's Investment Club.

• Invests through Method Capital, which provides growth capital to B2B technology companies, typically at Series A/B with checks of $1M–$10M (ideal ~$5M).
• Looks for companies with recurring revenue, referenceable customers, and a scalable technology platform — i.e., evidence of product-market fit and execution, not just a promising idea.
• Method's stated philosophy: success is "most often non-linear," and "good ideas succeed primarily because of great execution" — a bias toward backing strong operating teams.
• Midwest-centric: the firm's rationale is that Chicago and other Midwest cities generate rapid tech-company formation but have relatively few local firms able to lead Series A/B rounds.
• Madden's personal value-add skewed operational/financial — financial planning, fundraising, M&A, and exit support for portfolio teams — reflecting his analyst and finance background.