Process

At Austin Ventures, the following basic tenants govern our approach to partnering with entrepreneurs and evaluating new investment opportunities:

Start Early

No business proposal is too early for our consideration. At Austin Ventures we take pride in identifying promising ideas and writing the first check to fund their development. We engaged with many of our most successful portfolio companies when they were still just "big ideas".

Focus on What You Know

We typically focus our investment efforts on only a few industries - Enterprise and Internet Software, Datacenter Hardware, and Semiconductors and Components. Our extensive track record of success in these sectors means that we have watched dozens of companies grow from idea to IPO or acquisition and have learned from each company’s journey. This experience helps us to advise entrepreneurs at critical junctures, help companies find the right executives and employees from our broad network, and to build syndicates of top-tier investors to help fund companies to profitability.

Back Strong Teams

Our commitment to partnership with entrepreneurs means that we strive to build close bonds with our portfolio management teams without seeking complete decision-making control. We find that early stage ventures are most likely to achieve great performance when founders and management own a substantial stake in the company.

Participate in Company Growth

We join the board of directors in more than 90% of the investments we make and believe in remaining active with our portfolio companies. Our goal is to assist management teams with the challenges of managing rapid startup growth. In the early stages we are often called upon to help hire key executives, evaluate corporate strategy, and assess operating plans. We do not take executive roles in our portfolio companies or seek to run them.

Leave No Stone Unturned

Although the majority of our investment activity happens here in Texas, we are always interested in evaluating promising opportunities in our sectors of focus in other geographies.