Austin Ventures

Austin Ventures is an Austin, Texas-based private equity and venture capital firm founded in 1984 — one of the earliest and most influential venture institutions in the American Southwest. For more than three decades, it was the largest and most active venture capital firm in Texas, raising approximately $3.9 billion across ten funds and deploying nearly $3 billion into companies across the Lone Star State. The firm focuses on venture capital and growth equity in business services, supply chain, financial services, new media, internet, and information technology, with particular concentration on Texas-based companies. Austin Ventures invested in more than 200 companies across its history, targeting early-stage and middle-market businesses led by talented executives and entrepreneurs building industry-leading companies. The firm leads rounds with checks ranging from $3 million to $50 million. Its long tenure at the center of the Texas tech ecosystem gave it foundational relationships with the entrepreneurs and institutions that built Austin into a nationally significant technology hub. By 2015, the firm's general partners began transitioning toward buyout investing rather than traditional venture activity, reflecting a natural evolution after three decades of early-stage work. Austin Ventures' legacy is most visible in the ecosystem it helped build: its investments, exits, and the founders it backed over four decades shaped the culture and infrastructure of Texas technology entrepreneurship. The firm remains a reference point for the history and maturation of venture capital in markets outside coastal technology centers.