Name: Austin-based VC firms go head-to-head in a game of pickleball
Uploaded: 2023-07-05
Duration: 16 min 12 s
Description: And post-game, Silverton Partners and LiveOak Venture Partners share their investing strategies.

And post-game, Silverton Partners and LiveOak Venture Partners share their investing strategies.

Austin-based VC firms go head-to-head in a game of pickleball

Tech

Austin VC firms go head to head in a game of pickleball

Watch: Austin-based VC firms go head-to-head in a game of pickleball

Today is gonna be one for the books. I just know it, it's gonna be Live Oak Venture partners versus Silverton partners. On the Silverton team, we have Kip and a list of amazing rock stars at the firm. And then on the Live Oak team, we have Juliana and Krishna. It's going to be an amazing game. It's going to be competitive and not only are the firms competitive in their investment strategies, they're going to be competitive today in playing the game, go to the court. How are you feeling this afternoon? I'm good. I'm feeling excited, excited. What do you think is the worst thing about the Silver team in terms of their play style today? First thing, yeah, I'm like, are they good? Like that's the question, right? Because they don't know if they, between you and me, they were talking to some earlier about how y'all play. And so they're like really wanting to see if y'all actually are good at Juliana. You're gonna have a great game. Thank you so much. I'll see you out there. All right. How are you feeling? Feeling good? What's your game play strategy? How are you gonna be playing today. You know, I'm gonna, I'm gonna gotta assess the competition, but then, uh, I think, oh, listen, you're gonna, you know, whip up on, you've assessed the competition already. You've been warming up with them. What do you think so far? But Chris is looking right at you, I think is an amazing player excited that you're here this afternoon. Thanks for that. Thanks for people have their money on Live Oak today. What do you think about that? I think you have the right and they also said that the loser has to give up their best portfolio company. What do you think about that? You, you take that bet I would, we have respect for you worked lot of things together. It's wonderful to bring back uh collaboration. We have on the side to come to the court. No more collaboration. No more collaboration to. It's a fight, it's a fight in the end, the fight that will win. It's a blood bath of a fight and the, that's what it's gonna be all about. So, what's your gameplay strategy this afternoon? Tell me a little bit about how you're gonna play today. I'm gonna get underestimated the that's destroyed. Do you think they're any good people? Weren't saying they're that good. Actually, I think that they're pretending they're not good, but they seem pretty decent. We have Silverton, we have Live Oaks. Ladies and gentlemen, it'll be a game for the record books. Shake hands. We'll play a game at 21. Have a great one. The left to the fight going credit. What? Ok. Ok. Got it. Oh right. You're good. You're good growing first last year. So I know literally broke. Ok. All good. All good one. Oh oh oh 542. Oh that, oh yeah. Oh bye me up one less Paul. All right. It's 8 to 11 at halftime. Y'all are down by three. Y'all started out strong. Y'all are hitting the brakes off the ball. How do you get back in this game? Krishna. What was the first principle? Get back to the basics and that's it. All right. I love that. Giuliano. What do you think? How do you get back in this game? Agree. Focus, have fun. How's the nail doing? Can we see the nail? Oh, yeah. Can we get it close up to Josh real quick? You know, and it's, and it's, it's dirty play by them. That's, it's dirty play. And would you agree? Dirty play by them? Yeah, I think they had good getting the meal out. 100% really took for us. Right? And the crowd, the crowd chirping y'all. They're getting y'all's head. Do you think that's affecting y'all's game play at all? Not as much as a meal. Ok. Sure. So you know what to do. So let's battle back this next game. Let's finish it. Ok. Do it. Thank you so much. Let's do it. All right. Silverton. Y'all are up 11 to 8 at this point. Do you let up the gas or do you keep going strong? What's, what's the gameplay here? K it's anyone's game, anyone's game? Wow. Doesn't sound too confident to me. I thought you'd be more like, yeah, we're gonna win. Ok. Ok. Look, they gotta at least feel like it's anyone's game. Ok. Yeah. Get, get their hopes up a little bit because you can demolish them. Melissa. What do you think here? I all the way? All right. Well, everyone's got their money on y'all. Continue winning. Finish the game strong. Thank you so much. Let's get back out there. All right, let's do it. Oh, you got it can is on the line a lot. No kitchen my fault. Oh I Oh yeah. Mhm I OK. We have to do about three out of three. Come back in the century. Let's, let's do it. I got you. Ok. Oh, great game. Ok. What do you think? What do you think won? You guys that game you were down and you came back? Was it the pep talk you had at half time? What made you all have that crazy comeback? A broken kneel. Reflect upon it. Sure. It's just an incredible source of inspiration. Ok. I felt we have to do it for the male. Absolutely. Juliana. What do you think that was the source of your energy and your, for the end of the second half? Y'all? Congratulations. Congratulate on the win. It was well deserved. Hopefully we'll see you all next time. Amazing football games live. Congratulations Silverton. I know you'll get them next time. Um, I wanna transition now into a time where we can talk about the industry, talk about the markets a little bit, talk about venture here in Austin, Texas. Um, I wanna start with y'all. I know y'all exclusively invest in Texas based companies. Um, and I'm curious to, to see, you know, the the ecosystem around you is maybe straight away from that a little bit and they focus on the coast and not just Texas is y'all investing philosophy gonna stay investing in Texas. I think we see ourselves doubling down much more on Texas. That was the genesis of the farm. And uh we just see the opportunity set here getting even more robust of the talent ecosystem is used to mature nicely. Got it. You know, in Silverton, I know that y'all are based here in Austin, predominantly invest in Texas based talent. But I know you also invest in uh companies in New York, the Bay area and in Middle America as well. Not so much the Bay area, but yeah, outside of Bay Area. OK. Um And you know, why is that, what, what's the philosophy for extending your reach past? Just Texas? Yeah. So we've been the, the, the basic philosophy is we'll go where we have a uh network advantage just like we do in Austin. Um you know, the, the folks that, uh um you know, at the firm have all been operators, they've all operated and, and been in different firms in different areas. So where we have um that sort of access and the ability to help our companies um will go out of network. But by and large, we're, you know, 75% maybe, maybe 80 focused on Austin. Um And we don't see that changing. Got it. Julian. I wanna focus on you for a second. I know you're from Texas, you're from Austin, you know, you grew up here your whole life, went to high school here. Um How do you think the, not even just the venture ecosystem but just Austin has changed since you were here growing up? Have you seen a change over the last, you know, several years, decades, the past year has been, you know, really interesting. It's completely exploded in the past couple of years and I think with that explosion has also brought, you know, the influx of capital and other firms like coming into the market. I wanna hear y'all investment philosophy, you know, how do you make sure that you're investing in um ethical companies that you find the right fit and you um don't just prioritize returns over um what's a good fit for the, for the fund? Sure. I mean, I think, um I think at the most fundamental level, ethics is a characteristic of people of the firm of the culture they build. And so I think it works at a number of different levels investing in, in ethical companies. I think, you know, we wanna make sure that, um you know, in that stack, uh we're vetting the businesses that they're, you know, behaving the right way that we're supporting them with the right sort of governance that we have a culture within those companies. Um that support making the right decisions, even if they're hard decisions, I think as a firm, if you sort of have that as a high standard uh that you ask yourselves and your portfolio to live up to, you get to reinforce that pretty easily, right? And unless if there's a company within the fund that maybe isn't acting ethically to y'all standards, what kind of conversation would you have with that kind of company? Yeah. You know, I don't think that I can't think of any that have historically. Um But I think to point the conversation would be a pretty natural one because we have that relationship with the portfolio companies and the founders and it's so important to our core that it's, it's a constant conversation. I wanna hear from the, the four of y'all uh a sector that you're more bullish on than you think anybody else is in the market over the next five years. I have been, I will remain uh interested and I think it is uh perpetually an evergreen and interesting market. Um Cyber security is a, is a gift that keeps on giving sadly from a consumer's perspective, but happily from a, you know, an investor and an opportunity perspective. Um you know, the bad guys keep getting smarter and trickier and the companies have to continue to innovate. Um and the businesses have to protect their customers and that is a very uh powerful, consistent ecosystem, you know, double down on Texas mindset. I think a great place can you can you to be um software and technology permitting across all kinds of industries, right? Um Texas 50 plus Fortune 500 companies headquartered people call that vertical software. Uh We also call it tech enable services which ends up being for the specific uh vertical industry. So software is eating lunch, eating lunch in all these industries. So we continue to see amazing companies in uh mainstream industries uh where software is playing a very disruptive role software right now. Our answer is software because you, I mean, I guess the only thing else you, you could have chose hardware, but I, I think software is probably a better choice. What do the software is slightly better than member security? I think technology is probably the right technology I invest in people. II, I think, you know, vertical software is a particular strength field in Texas. OK? Because it's, it's the application of software for legal for health care, for logistics and so on and things like that is a, is, is a unique strength field because you just have a lot of large companies which uh there's a lot of domain expertise that comes from them. Uh the application of software and tech in these industries can disrupt some existing large markets. And that can used to be a common theme that I know how competitive both firms are. Um early stage. Texas is a, is a big um area they all invest in. What is um uh an investment that one of y'all has won, that the other hasn't won that keeps you up at night. It's actually a super easy question. We don't, we don't have that. Um I've worked with Christian on a handful of deals. I don't know that we've ever competed in a situation and, and had that. It's in fact, all the, we end up working on, we end up working together on that investment. How does, how does that work? Y'all come together and work on? You have co leads. We've been, we've been on a handful of boards together and I think that probably makes Austin one of the things that's a little bit different than some of the coast is um you do have that cooperative environment, I think um there's so much activity uh from a investor perspective on the west coast, for example, I think you naturally have to get into more of a competitive situation. So like, you know, if you want, if you want peace in the universe come to Austin. If, if, if I look back, I think we've had one epic fight between the two of you for that here today that the pickle was OK. This is the first real beef between the, the two. I mean, we're gonna hang out. Yeah. Yeah. They, they're going to play another round after this.