Scott Matthews will be getting some serious airline miles in the near future.
The New York-based executive was just officially named the new CEO of Verusen, an Atlanta-based supply chain startup. Matthews told Hypepotamus that he is dedicated to scaling the business from Atlanta, and he will begin commuting down to the city every week.
“I’m not going to do [the job] remotely because I believe in the talent pool down here,” he said. Currently, around 60% of Verusen’s team is located in the Metro Atlanta area.
Matthews said he was attracted to Verusen because the startup is tackling a major problem for businesses with complex supply chains.
“There are thousands of companies that have a direct material problem. They don’t know where the materials are. They’re sourced by 10 different vendors. They’re maintained in different ERP systems. And the data is really hard to figure out,” added Matthews. “Verusen’s platform rationalizes all that disparate data through artificial intelligence. We match data that’s in different sources and different formats, and allow people to have far less inventory to run their business without sacrificing performance.”
He told Hypepotamus that he was also drawn to the company because of its focus on engineering and product development. “We value the platform and the technology that we’re building so much that 50 cents on every dollar goes into research and development and building the platform that customers consume,” he added.
To date, Verusen customers have largely centered inside the energy or pulp and paper industry verticals. Notable brands like ABinBev and Georgia Pacific are among Verusen’s early customers. But Matthews said the platform can be used to help manufacturers and large enterprises in any vertical work through massive amounts of disparate materials data.
New Verticals & Geographies: Matthews’ Vision For Verusen
Hypepotamus has covered Verusen over the years as it scaled under Paul Noble’s tenure as CEO and co-founder. The startup, founded in 2015, is backed by Southeast venture firms Dynamo and Forte Ventures. It was also part of the Spring 2019 Engage cohort, a program designed to help connect early-stage startups with corporate innovators.
Verusen raised a $25 million Series B in January of 2022 with lead investor California-based Scale Venture Partners.
As Matthews steps into the CEO seat, Noble will move to Chief Strategy Officer.
“We complement each other famously,” Matthews told Hypepotamus.
Matthews is no stranger to leading tech startups. Most recently, he served as CEO of MRP, a marketing intelligence software company based out of Philadelphia. He also spent five years as CEO of CrowdTwist, a customer loyalty platform acquired by Oracle in 2019.
Matthews brings a wealth of experience when it comes to leading fast-growing startups through the go-to market phase. Which is exactly the type of expertise Verusen needs to expand in the B2B supply chain scene.
Matthews told Hypepotamus that he is focused on growing the business into new industry verticals and into new geographies.
