Matt Nichols, GP Commerce Ventures Returns!
Six months after his first appearance, Commerce Ventures’ Matt Nichols joins us again to recap the year, pressure-test predictions, and map out what’s coming next in AI-driven commerce.
Matt Nichols is back, and a lot has changed since his first appearance on Retailgentic six months ago (feels like 3yrs+ in pre-AI time!).
Matt is a General Partner at Commerce Ventures, a $165M fund investing across retail tech, fintech, and commerce infrastructure. With a career that spans venture capital, operating roles, and even serving as CEO of a jewelry brand later acquired by Berkshire Hathaway, he brings a uniquely grounded, operator-meets-investor lens to the future of Agentic Commerce.
When Matt first joined us in Episode 4, he laid out a set of predictions about data feeds, payments, AI-driven discovery, and retailer readiness. Fast-forward six months to Episode 30, and most of those predictions have already happened.
Since then, Commerce Ventures has continued to sit at the center of the ecosystem, hearing from both the startups building the next wave of commerce and the major retailers, PSPs, and financial institutions who make up their LP base.
If you want more background on Matt, Commerce Ventures, and his operator story, go listen to his first appearance in Episode 4, it sets the perfect foundation for today’s conversation.
Listen/Watch Our Interview:
In this episode, Scot and Matt revisit the predictions he made six months ago, look at what came true far faster than expected, and dig into the infrastructure challenges that still stand between us and frictionless agentic transactions. From SKU mapping and API-first checkout to the economics of feeds and the future of retailer traffic, this episode is a full-stack view of where Agentic Commerce stands at the end of 2025, and what’s coming in 2026.
If you want more of Matt’s backstory and Commerce Ventures’ thesis, listen to Episode 4! It pairs perfectly with today’s deep dive. In this episode, they cover:
Why VC predictions used to take 5–10 years to play out… and now take 5–10 weeks
What Commerce Ventures is hearing from both startups and their LP base (top retailers + PSPs)
Why ACP isn’t “the solution”—and what infrastructure still needs to be built
The “API vs. fake-it-til-you-make-it” debate in agentic transactions
How retailers should think about feeds, reviews, and blocking scrapers
Why “AI magic on your own site” is step one for most brands
Predictions for 2026: traffic shifts, wallet battles, Apple’s eventual entry, and more
Where Matt thinks the industry is overly optimistic, and where the real upside is
If this year taught us anything, it’s that the next six months will change more than the last six years. Stay tuned.
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