Editor’s Note: This profile is excerpted from our partner publication, ExitEvent.
Matt Tomasulo is not a politician.
He’s a designer, an urban planner, a landscape architect, a city dweller, a business owner and increasingly, a thought leader.
But his experience building a startup that unintentionally grabbed the attention of city leaders around the world thrust him into the municipal world.
It also made the opportunities and issues in his own city of Raleigh all the more evident, and incited a passion for taking entrepreneurial lessons he learned building CityFabric and Walk [Your City] into practice in government.
On Oct. 6, Tomasulo hopes Raleigh voters give him a shot at infusing startup into City Council. And he’s got a growing following of local startup leaders behind him.
Throwing his final fundraiser Thursday night at HQ Raleigh is a team that includes Justin Miller of WedPics, Matt Whitley of Happy & Hale, Jason Widen of HQ Raleigh, angel investor Bill Spruill, Trish and John Healy of Hyde Street Holdings, Niall Hanley of Hibernian Irish Pub and the Raleigh Beer Garden and startup lawyer Mital Patel.
Patel is a fan of Tomasulo because of his entrepreneurial bent and use of technology, data and creativity to solve community problems. Plus, he finds recent moves by the existing Council “concerning.”
“We need someone like Matt that understands the way the world works in 2015 and can help the city lead rather than react and try to keep up with issues,” Patel says.
