AUSTIN, Texas--(BUSINESS WIRE)--LiveOak Venture Partners, an Austin-based venture capital firm that focuses on early-stage tech startups across Texas, announced today that it has been named on Inc.’s list of Founder-Friendly Investors for 2022, honoring the private equity and venture capital firms that have helped founder-led businesses thrive.
“We are delighted to be named as one of Inc.’s most Founder-Friendly investors and are grateful for the recognition from the founders we have the pleasure of working with every day,” said Krishna Srinivasan, Founding Partner of LiveOak Venture Partners. “We are deeply engaged in the Texas entrepreneurial ecosystem and committed to establishing strong foundations that help develop the leaders of the future. We view this as a validation of our playbook around investing early and partnering through the lifecycle to enable the creation of Texas-based category leaders.”
LiveOak’s proven strategy of building the next generation of leaders out of Texas that co-founding partners Krishna Srinivasan and Venu Shamapant have implemented for over two decades, has long been an investment partner of choice for founders looking to grow and scale their companies in Texas. These companies have gone on to raise over $1B to date and consist of leaders such as publicly-traded Austin company DISCO (NYSE: LAW), as well as Austin-based startup leaders Eventus, Homeward, OJO Labs, Opcity, Digital Pharmacist, and TrustRadius. LiveOak has also actively invested in Dallas market leaders such as AmplifAI and Take Command Health.
LiveOak’s all-in approach has helped foster valuable and personal partnerships with founders. Some of their testimonial statements:
“LiveOak was our first investor eight years ago,” said Kiwi Camara, CEO, and Founder of DISCO. “Their entire team is smart and analytical, provides sound strategic advice, helped us make key early hires, and coached us through follow-on financings with introductions to the growth investors all over the world. We could not have built our company without LiveOak.”
“LiveOak has been incredible partners to us as entrepreneurs and to the entire business of OJO,” said John Berkowitz, CEO and Founder of OJO Labs. “They have been thoughtful, dedicated, and appreciative of our hard work. They stood by us during tough times and were always available with their experience and network.”
“Our approach is to act as true partners who are deeply invested in our companies. We look to serve as team players that are also strategic advisors who hustle just as hard as our founders to ultimately help their companies to flourish. This honor reflects that effort,” said Venu Shamapant, Founding Partner of LiveOak Venture Partners. “With the explosive momentum in the Texas entrepreneurial scene, we’re very much all-in on Texas and believe our thriving tech ecosystem is well-positioned to build the next wave of category-defining companies.”
To compile the list, Inc. went straight to the source: entrepreneurs who have sold to private equity and venture capital firms. Founders filled out a questionnaire about their experiences partnering with private equity and venture capital firms and shared data on how their portfolio companies have grown during these partnerships.
To see the complete list, go to: https://www.inc.com/founder-friendly-investors/2022.
About LiveOak Venture Partners
LiveOak Venture Partners is a venture capital fund based in Austin, Texas. With over 20 years of successful venture investing in Texas, the founders of LiveOak have helped create nearly $5 billion of enterprise value. While almost all LiveOak's investments begin in the early stages, LiveOak is a complete life cycle investor focused on technology and technology-enabled service companies based in Texas. With close to $500M under management, LiveOak Venture Partners has been the lead investor in over 50 exciting high-growth Texas-based companies in the last decade, including DISCO (NYSE: LAW), Digital Pharmacist, Eventus, OJO Labs, Opcity, Homeward, and TrustRadius. The firm was recognized as the Venture Capital Firm of the year in Austin in the 2022 inaugural A-List awards by the Greater Austin Chamber of Commerce.
About Inc.
The world’s most trusted business-media brand, Inc., offers entrepreneurs the knowledge, tools, connections, and community they need to build great companies. Its award-winning multiplatform content reaches more than 50 million people each month across a variety of channels, including websites, newsletters, social media, podcasts, and print. Its prestigious Inc. 5000 list, produced every year since 1982, analyzes company data to recognize the fastest-growing privately held businesses in the United States. The global recognition that comes with inclusion in the 5000 gives the founders of the best businesses an opportunity to engage with an exclusive community of their peers, and the credibility that helps them drive sales and recruit talent. The associated Inc. 5000 Conference is part of a highly acclaimed portfolio of bespoke events produced by Inc. For more information, visit www.inc.com.
