Malte Witt is a Techstars veteran with deep Boulder roots.
His journey with the Boulder-born accelerator began in 2019 as Techstars Boulder's program manager before moving into an investment associate role. During this time, Witt worked alongside former Boulder managing directors Andres Barreto and Natty Zola, who is a partner at VC firm Matchstick Ventures.
Now, four years later, Witt has come back to the Boulder program as its managing director.
In this role, he will run two accelerators annually and help source the top 1% of founders to get them into the original Techstars accelerator. When a program is up and running, Witt will help the founders with everything from go-to-market customer discovery, growth and customer acquisition, to fundraising, hiring and recruiting.
"It's a very heavy responsibility and not something that I take lightly," Witt said. "I'm very much having to pinch myself [with] the fact that I have sort of come full circle and had this homecoming of sorts."
Calling himself an "almost native," Witt moved to Boulder from Denmark as a kid in 1995. He graduated from the University of Colorado Boulder in 2013.
"This is where my heart is, and I want to see this ecosystem grow," Witt said. "I want to see more founders building here. I want to see more venture dollars coming to Colorado-based companies and, obviously, coming through Techstars Boulder."
Although Witt left the Boulder program in 2022, he continued working for the company, launching the Techstars Miami accelerator with Barreto and through a partnership with J.P. Morgan. While Witt did this, he continued living in Denver and would travel four times a year.
Now that Witt's back with Techstars Boulder, he plans to continue helping founders and startups scale. He said his role will evolve over time but that he will align accelerator programs with the needs of the market and founders.
"My thesis will still be based around what I think is the magic of most Techstars programs, which is always orienting around the team first," he said.
Witt plans to move the programs from a summer and winter offering to a spring and fall cycle. This, he said, will better align with typical fundraising seasons and hopefully help founders keep momentum throughout the year rather than stall out around the winter holidays.
He also envisions the program being largely centered around business-to-business and enterprise SaaS companies.
"I see it as [the] greatest market opportunity for the founders, and also, I feel like we have built a really solid community of mentors and investors who support those types of businesses most effectively," he said.
Techstars offers in-person, virtual and hybrid accelerator programs across 39 cities and 14 countries. The Boulder program will continue to operate as a hybrid model with at least the first and last weeks of the typically 13-week program taking place in person. Witt said this creates a more accessible program and allows Techstars to invest in founders from all walks of life, including those with families who can't easily move from state to state.
Each Techstars accelerator also matches founders in the program with a mentor. Since Covid, this matching has taken place via Zoom, something Witt said will continue.
Witt joined Techstars Boulder as the managing director in June, replacing Elle Bruno. Witt's first accelerator as managing director is more than halfway through and includes participation from two local startups.
The next Boulder program will kick off in spring 2024.
