Wednesday, May 21, 2014

LiveOak Venture Partners Raises $109M Venture Fund

In what looks to be one of the largest funds to be raised by a local venture capital firm in recent years, Austin-based LiveOak Venture Partners announced this morning that it has held a final close for its inagural fund, at $109M. The venture investor said the fund is the largest pool of capital raised in Texas for early-stage technology companies in over five years. LiveOak was founded by Venu Shamapant, Krishna Srinivasan, and Ben Scott, three veteran Texas venture capitalists, who have been investing in early stage companies here for many years. The three all had previously been at Austin Ventures.

According to the founders, in an interview, one of the key goals of the firm is to help bridge the gap between Texas startups and Silicon Valley investors, who typically look for a local lead on investments. Shamapant, Srinivasan, and Scott have previously been involved in successful investments and exits in such companies as Spatial Wireless, Navini Networks, LifeSize Technologies, and Mavenir Systems.

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