About
Good to meet you
Opening round is a hands-on consulting firm for progressive venture leaders.
We collaborate with startup founders, angel investors and venture capital firms to identify opportunities for strategic growth and execute on winning go-to-market strategies for venture success.
We will embed ourselves into the company structure to best understand the internal rhythms of the business and create a meaningful impact; or provide high velocity results on a project-to-project basis.
What we do
We collaborate with like-minded partners who understand the value of community in the world off tech and innovation.
We specialize in creating content and experiences that engage purpose-driven leaders in the innovation space and build connections into underserved communities.
We provide:
Marlon has spent over a decade working at the cross-section of innovation, economic inclusion and community. He is a seasoned executive, startup founder and career startup investor.
In 2020, Marlon launched Future Capital with a mission to bring a new kind of equity to the venture capital space. The company was acquired by Spring Activator in 2023. Marlon is also trained in instructional design and financial modelling for venture capital.
Marlon has served on the Board of Directors for QueerTech since 2022. QueerTech is Canada’s leading organization dedicated to queering the tech ecosystem in Canada.
Get to know our founder:
The Craft with May Globus: Ep 067 - Marlon Thompson
About our founder
Our Methodology
We provide forward-thinking venture solutions from the inside .
We work on a project-to-project basis or in a fractional capacity and centre our work around key operational principles":
Culturally aligned lead-generation
Defining and attracting partnership potential through strategic alignment.
Data-driven Strategic Development
Capture and analyze the relevant startup and vc data to craft meanginful strategies for growth and exection
Creating for the New Majority
Thinking differently about the way business can and should led.
Operational Agility
Developing organizational capacity for inevitable pivots + strategic growth.
Our Founder
Marlon has spent over a decade working at the cross-section of innovation, economic inclusion and community. He is a seasoned executive, startup founder and career startup investor.
In 2020, Marlon launched Future Capital with a mission to bring a new kind of equity to the venture capital space. The company was acquired by Spring Activator in 2023. Marlon is also trained in instructional design and financial modelling for venture capital.
Marlon has served on the Board of Directors for QueerTech since 2022. QueerTech is Canada’s leading organization dedicated to queering the tech ecosystem in Canada.
In 2022, Marlon was appointed to the Inquiry Committee for the College of Physcians and Surgeons of British Columbia, a regulatory body that serves the public by regulating physicians and surgeons.
RESOURCE
JAN. 2025
Why some startup founders may choose to bootstrap in 2025.
By Opening Round
Startup founders across a number of industries are facing a very different fundraising landscape in 2025. According to Modern Retail, a shift in mindset is in process for many DTC founders when it comes to tapping into the venture capital market. The evolution in the capitalization strategies for founders is in concert with a meaningful dip in funding received by radicalized and gender-diverse founders.
Carta recently shared their annual equity report on the state of equity and diversity within the venture ecosystem. The report aggregated and anonymized data from tens of thousands of startups in order to examine how opportunities found companies, raise venture funding, and work at startups are distibuted according to race and gender.
Here are some key data points form the report:
Young Founders are more diverse.
