Matthew Crowe presented himself to many individuals and companies in Minnesota as a successful businessman who was raising a new $100 million venture capital fund called Huckleberry Ventures.
He retained law firms, staffing organizations, international venture capital advisory services firms, plus hired a staff and invited well-connected individuals in finance and entrepreneurial ventures to become his partner in the firm.
He told and wrote stories about his amazingly successful past entrepreneurial ventures, and about his access to individuals and entities that would invest in the venture capital fund. He even began to meet with start-up companies on the premise that he had access to $3 to $5 million as a "demonstrator fund" to show the investors he was talking to that he and those he added as partners and advisors to this firm could pick good deals. He approached builders owners about sweetheart real estate terms for his offices. I have heard from others than he ran up 10s of thousands of dollars in promised payments, salaries and office expenses, and then skipped town to San Francisco without paying one bill.
It turns out, according to those close to the situation, that everything was a lie. I'm not certain if it was a scam in that he took money from others, as I have only heard about this via others who were more directly affected. I was affected in that I started to evangelize this seemingly great new way for start-ups in Minnesota to get funded, and now my network is questioning my credibility.
I was moved to file this report, because now Matt Crowe seems to be blaming his failure at something that was a lie and not real to begin with on the culture here in Minnesota, via his blog: http://mattcrowe.com