Nate Morgan, investor at HubSpot Ventures, is one of our top 50 Rising Stars in corporate venturing for 2025.
Like many people in corporate VC, Nate Morgan comes from a finance background, but he quickly learned that he loved listening to founders and seeing their success. He wanted to get closer to the action and targeted an early-stage investment career after his MBA at UVA Darden.
A large part of what HubSpot does, is provide small and mid-sized organisations with tools that allow them to punch far above their weight. As part of the investment team, Morgan enjoys being able to contribute to an ecosystem that can help a ten-person team compete against a hundred-person team.
“I get to collaborate with amazing people inside HubSpot, who are building products and helping HubSpot continue to push the envelope on innovation. It is a really unique set of perspectives to tap into and learn from,” he says.
“Do not shy away from those internal learning opportunities and networking opportunities, because they can help drive you forward as you have external conversations”
Morgan is interested in the new tools that can be plugged into HubSpot’s integration and app marketplace for SMEs to use – everything from hyper-personalised marketing and sales tools to new applications for AI agents and the modernisation of traditional vertical SaaS.
Newcomers to CVC should remember to always look both internally and externally, says Morgan. Learning as much as you can about how the professionals within the corporate operate can only help you when dealing with the external ecosystem.
“Do not shy away from those internal learning opportunities and networking opportunities, because they can help drive you forward as you have external conversations,” he says.
At the same time, do not be afraid to bring what you have learned back to the corporation.
“For an up-and-coming corporate VC it can be difficult to tiptoe around surfacing those insights to the right people internally – making it a two-way conversation has unlocked some really interesting opportunities and learnings for HubSpot and our portfolio,” he says.
See the full list of Rising Stars 2025 here.
