Matt McIlwain

Matt McIlwain

Investor at Exa
Sea Island, Georgia, United States

Matt McIlwain currently serves as a board member at several companies, including A-Alpha Bio, Amperity, Axiom Math, Booster, and EdgeRunner AI. He has previously held board roles at Accolade, Inc. (which went public in 2021), Apptio (which went public in 2016), Farecast, and Isilon Systems (which went public in 2006), as well as serving as Vice President of Business Process at Genuine Parts Company.

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Lisa Stiffler / GeekWire

Ozette, a Fred Hutch spinout incubated at AI2, raises $6M seed to scale AI immune-monitoring platform

Ozette, a Seattle biotech spun out of Fred Hutch and incubated at AI2, raised a $6 million seed round to scale its eight-person team and commercialize an AI-driven Immune Monitoring Platform that analyzes high-dimensional single-cell protein data, initially focused on cancer. The founders say the platform automates analysis of billions-to-trillions of protein-expression combinations and increases usable information from roughly 10% to 100% of study data.

Kurt Schlosser / GeekWire

Madison McIlwain, daughter of Madrona’s Matt McIlwain, becomes associate at Defy and pursues fashion, e-commerce investing

Madison McIlwain, daughter of Madrona Venture Group managing director Matt McIlwain, followed her father's path into venture capital and is now an associate at early-stage VC Defy, bringing interests in fashion, e-commerce and the consumer supply chain. The article profiles how growing up with dinner-table discussions about startups shaped her approach to investing and highlights Defy’s co-investments with Madrona in Seattle companies like Nautilus Biotechnology and WhyLabs.

John Cook / GeekWire

Tanium raises $150 million from Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan after HQ move to Kirkland, Wash.

Tanium, a cybersecurity firm that relocated its headquarters from Emeryville, Calif. to Kirkland, Wash., raised $150 million in common stock from the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan to fund growth and expand its Seattle-area engineering presence. The privately held company, co-founded by David and Orion Hindawi, reported over $430 million in revenue in 2019 and now employs about 1,500 people.

Taylor Soper / GeekWire

Madrona Venture Group Raises $345M for 8th Fund and $161M for 2nd Later-Stage Fund in Largest Ever $500M Capital Raise

Madrona Venture Group raised over $500 million for its largest fundraise ever, including $345 million for an eighth early-stage fund targeting 35-40 Pacific Northwest startups and $161 million for a second later-stage Acceleration Fund. The firm continues to focus on supporting the Pacific Northwest tech ecosystem while also backing later-stage companies across North America.

Todd Bishop / GeekWire

GeekWire Podcast: Salesforce to buy Slack for $27.7B; AWS surprises at re:Invent; Tanium (valued $9B, $430M revenue) moves HQ to Seattle

GeekWire Podcast discusses Salesforce’s $27.7 billion acquisition of Slack, surprising announcements from AWS at re:Invent, and cybersecurity firm Tanium relocating its headquarters to the Seattle region with $9 billion valuation and $430M revenue, with commentary from Madrona’s Matt McIlwain on regional and cloud/enterprise implications.

Taylor Soper / GeekWire

Nautilus Biotechnology raises $76M Series B led by Vulcan Capital; Bezos Expeditions among investors, total funding tops $100M

Nautilus Biotechnology, co-founded by Stanford scientist Parag Mallick and Isilon co-founder Sujal Patel, revealed a platform to study the human proteome and announced a $76 million Series B led by Vulcan Capital with participation from Bezos Expeditions, Perceptive Advisors and others. The round brings total funding above $100 million for the 50-person startup as it exits stealth to accelerate proteomics-driven therapeutics development.

Taylor Soper / GeekWire

OctoML raises $15M from Amplify and Madrona to scale TVM-based ML deployment tools

Seattle startup OctoML, spun out of the University of Washington and led by Apache TVM creators, raised $15 million from investors including Amplify and Madrona to expand its ML deployment software. The company, which launched a TVM-based SaaS called Octomizer, will use the funding to grow hiring and scale its optimizer for edge and cloud model deployment.

Alison McCulloch / Madrona

Steve Singh Joins Madrona Venture Group as Managing Director to Back Next-Gen Entrepreneurs

Steve Singh has joined Madrona Venture Group as a managing director, transitioning from a long entrepreneurial career to venture investing to support and mentor the next generation of entrepreneurs. He emphasizes Madrona's focus on backing people, thematic investing in next-phase computing—especially Intelligent Applications—and helping founders build lasting companies.

Alison McCulloch / Madrona

Madrona promotes Troy Cichos to COO and Partner; Jennifer Chambers named Administrative Partner; Tasha Tieu joins as Controller; Ted Kummert becomes Chief Product Officer in Residence

Madrona announced administrative team changes: Troy Cichos promoted to COO and Partner, Jennifer Chambers promoted to Administrative Partner, Tasha Tieu hired as Controller, Ted Kummert’s role expanded to Chief Product Officer in Residence, and Hope Cochran named Managing Director. The moves support operations as Madrona manages nearly $1.6 billion across five active funds with a 35-person staff.

Organizations

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  • Thira logo
    Thira Director 2026–present · current
  • Exa Investor 2026–present · current
  • Thira Board Member 2026–present · current

Education

  • Harvard Business School Master of Business Administration (MBA) · 1990–1992
  • Dartmouth College Bachelor's degree, Government with economics · 1983–1987

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