Breyer Capital Austin — End of Year Update
After officially announcing Breyer Capital Austin earlier this year after two years of active planning and due diligence, I received a humbling number of gracious emails and messages from Austin-based leaders, entrepreneurs, executives, and investors. Old and new friends have reached out to welcome us to their community and share ideas about how we could play an impactful role in this remarkable city and state. Over this past year as I’ve gotten to know so much about my new home, I’ve been increasingly impressed by the vibrancy and creativity that Austin exemplifies. Even in 2020, a difficult year by any measure, the Austin community has surpassed all of my expectations. I feel honored to live here, privileged to invest here, and more confident than ever that Austin entrepreneurs will build many truly transformative businesses and philanthropic organizations.
As this year comes to a close, I wanted to briefly share some detail about what Breyer Capital Austin has achieved thus far and what we aspire to build in the years and decades to come.
I should start by saying that I owe a debt of gratitude to my Austin and Texas friends who I’ve known for many years and were such strong advocates for Breyer Capital Austin. Michael Dell and Susan Dell helped me brainstorm and prepare for this new undertaking. Since moving here, they have been indispensable, connecting me to many of the city’s best minds and opportunities. With Michael and Susan’s help, I’ve been able to learn more about the interdisciplinary work at Dell Medical Center, where breakthroughs in computational biology and machine learning are helping doctors better diagnose and treat cancer.
I also couldn’t be happier that friends from Silicon Valley like Joe Lonsdale, Drew Houston, and Elon Musk have also moved here. I’m thrilled that they along with our longtime friends and extraordinary leaders at cutting-edge technology companies such as Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Microsoft, Oracle, Tesla, and many others are choosing to expand their businesses significantly in the Austin area.
Even during this global pandemic, I’ve found ways to reconnect with old friends here in Austin and Texas. Charles Holley, Joe Ogilvie, Ross Perot Jr., Bob Metcalfe, Tom Luce, and Bill Wood have all been so welcoming. In many cases, they’ve introduced me to new friends, investors like Josh Baer, Krishna Srinivasan, Brian Smith, Robert Gauntt, and Adam Zeplain, who have been generous with their time, insights, and experience. This city is lucky to have gifted investors like Josh, Krishna, Brian, Robert, and Adam and I look forward to working even more closely with each of them.
It’s also been a joy getting to know some of the amazing women and men at Dell Medical School and UT Austin. We are seeing groundbreaking thinking in areas where medicine and computation intersect, a multi-year Breyer Capital investment thesis. Breyer Capital continues to deeply plug into these exceptional academic communities and we’re eager to add value and work with some of the city’s best and brightest.
On the entrepreneur side, founders like Brett Hurt and John Berkowitz have gone above and beyond for Breyer Capital. In addition to building transformative companies that we’re lucky to have in the portfolio, data.world and OJO Labs respectively, they’ve helped with introductions, investment diligence, and broader portfolio support.
Since moving here, and thanks to the help of so many, Breyer Capital Austin has invested in over ten Austin-based companies and funds. In my last post, I highlighted Swivel and OJO Labs. I can now announce that Breyer Capital has also invested in Bestow, data.world, Disco, and ZenBusiness PBC. I hope to announce the other investments soon, but I think this initial tranche is representative of the opportunities Breyer Capital is looking for in Austin and Texas. Alongside top-tier co-investors like Bessemer Venture Partners, Capital Factory, Live Oak, Mark VC, Valar Ventures, S3, and so many others, we aspire to help these companies achieve their trailblazing potential.
While obviously bullish on Austin, Breyer Capital remains excited to invest in and support current and future Silicon Valley portfolio companies. For example, we just announced our Mark Benioff co-investment in Richard Socher’s You.com. Richard was previously the Chief Scientist at Salesforce. Recently, we were proud to watch our longtime friend Tom Siebel and his company C3.ai, a Breyer Capital early-stage investment, list on the New York Stock Exchange. We also have several stealth startups that sit at the intersection of AI and healthcare. Silicon Valley will continue to play a central role in Breyer Capital’s investment thesis.
I am proud though that my move to Austin has already ushered in a new era for Breyer Capital. In the years and decades to come, the Breyer Capital Austin team looks forward to adding value to the current portfolio and investing in many more Austin-based businesses. We especially look forward to partnering with impact-oriented businesses. Breyer Capital feels strongly that the next great companies will be paragons of conscious capitalism, organizations determined to return value to their shareholders and make the world a better place.
If you’re an innovator/entrepreneur/venture capitalist/investor building something exciting in Austin, we hope to hear from you. Breyer Capital looks forward to playing a role in helping Austin and Texas entrepreneurs achieve extraordinary things in the near and long-term future.
We are thrilled about the partnerships we’ve formed to date in Austin and Texas and aspire to thoughtfully and diligently work to give back to this special part of the world.
