Matt Hawkins is the Founder and Managing Partner of Entourage Effect Capital, a venture capital firm investing exclusively in the cannabis industry. Since 2014, the firm has made nearly 70 investments out of three funds and various co-investment vehicles and special purpose entities. He is also Chairman of the Board of Directors of StateHouse Holdings and a board member of Sunderstorm. As one of the first investors in the space, Hawkins is considered a thought leader and has held discussions on countless industry panels and with media such as CNBC, Fox News, Bloomberg, Cheddar, and Yahoo Finance.

Prior to the founding of EEC, Hawkins was a partner and President of a private real estate investment company which acquired REO and NPL from banks and financial institutions across the country, with particular interest in multifamily residential and self-storage assets. The company completed more than 55 bank-direct acquisitions, deploying over $500M of capital since Q4 2008. In 2013 alone, the company bought close to 10,000 Class B and Class C value-add multifamily units across the Sunbelt of the United States. At the end of 2013, Matt and his partners sold their interest.

Additionally, he was a Principal/ Co-founder of San Jacinto Partners, a fund focused on the bulk acquisition of single family residential assets, and Managing General Partner of Adjacent Capital, a private equity/specialty lending fund. Hawkins was earlier affiliated with Treadstone Partners, a distressed debt and equity fund, and Hull & Associates, a regional turnaround management firm. He is a graduate of The University of Texas at Austin.