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Hope Cochran

Managing Director

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Hope Cochran
“Hope immediately understood the problem we were trying to solve at Sila. Her operating experience and CFO background gives her keen insight into the challenge and opportunity associated with embedding financial services into digital applications. This insight has helped us grow over time while staying hyper focused on solving problems from our customers.”
— Shamir Karkal, Co-founder & CEO, Sila

Hope Cochran

Managing Director

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Hope became a managing director in early 2019, following two years as a venture partner. As managing director, Hope identifies and leads new investments, provides strategic and operational advice to Madrona portfolio companies, and fosters corporate and strategic business development relationships with larger companies and investors. Hope spearheads Madrona’s leadership in the OnBoarding Women program, which focuses on a business-first education for prospective women corporate board members. In addition, Hope serves on the boards of Ai2, Hasbro, Inc, MongoDB, and NewRelic.

Journey to Madrona

Prior to joining Madrona, Hope was the CFO of King Digital, the creator of Candy Crush and other successful mobile games, where she helped the company manage explosive employee and revenue growth, guided the company’s IPO, and successfully completed a $5.9 billion acquisition by Activision in early 2016. Before King Digital, Hope was CFO at Clearwire, a telecom company that navigated the complicated world of spectrum, partnerships, and competition as the modern wireless industry took shape. While at Clearwire, she brought the company through $12 billion of capital raises, including an IPO, secondary offering, multiple debt offerings, and strategic investments from large public companies, and ultimately through the acquisition by Sprint.

Hope started her career as an entrepreneur and founder of SkillsVillage. A company she grew to 200 employees and $10 million in revenue. Acquired by Peoplesoft and folded into its larger platform, SkillsVillage created a system for companies to easily manage contract labor.

Listen to Hope shares her inspiring story in her own words on one of our episodes of Founded & Funded.

Lessons learned

  • In the life of startups, when capital is available, take it quickly and then spend time planning how to utilize it.
  • When motivating your team, understand what motivates them first – professionally and personally.
  • Enjoy the journey. The destination is enticing, but it is better because of the successes and failures experienced to get there!

When she’s not in the office…

Hope is an avid supporter of the arts. When not in the office, she can be found chasing her three children around or pursuing other outdoor activities.

Noteworthy

Hope holds a bachelor’s in economics and music from Stanford University. Among other honors, Hope has been named one of Fortune’s Top 10 Women in Gaming, Women Inc’s 2018 Most Influential Corporate Director, Puget Sound CFO of the Year for Public Companies, and 2021 Puget Sound Director of the Year. She also received a Top 50 Global Telecom CFO award from Global Telecom Business.

Current Investments

Past Investments

Integris
acq. by onetrust
Give InKind
acq. by wolfe

Insights

February 22, 2024
by Hope Cochran and Sabrina Wu
Our Investment in Finpilot: Reimagining the Financial Analyst’s Journey With AI
March 30, 2021
Hope Cochran on the Entrepreneurial Journey – Hers! (Encore)
June 21, 2022
by Hope Cochran
5 Things Entrepreneurs Must Consider (and Probably Haven’t) When Expanding Their Distributed Workforce
January 13, 2021
Forbes
Women, Want To Get On A Company Board? Read These Tips From A Leader Of OnBoarding Women And Managing Director Of Madrona Venture Group

Hope on Madrona

“Madrona has continuously inspired and supported entrepreneurs throughout the Northwest community. They have insight into the trends driving technology and a vision for the future —and the ability to find fantastic talent that brings it all together. I am honored to be a part of this talented team to help propel innovation throughout the technology community.”