LiveOak Venture Partners announced Tuesday that it has closed a $105 million fund, its second fund.
The fund was oversubscribed, according to a news release.
Krishna Srinivasan, Venu Shamapant and Ben Scott founded Austin-based LiveOak in 2013 and raised a $100 million fund to invest in early-stage Texas startups. The three founders met while working together at Austin Ventures.
LiveOak’s Fund II has already led investments in six companies including Austin startups Eventador, Osano and Rollick, and Dallas-based AmplifAI, according to a news release.
“Texas is exploding with opportunity,” LiveOak Partner Srinivasan said in a news release. “We are continuing to execute on our proven playbook of creating successful companies for close to 20 years in Texas. Early stage investing is a local neighborhood sport, and as such, we are looking to be the local lead investor and first money in companies to harness their full potential and help create the next generation of category leaders coming out of this market.”
To date, LiveOak has led or co-led 24 investments. Those companies have collectively raised more than $400 million. Its exits include Digital Pharmacist being acquired by KI Investment Management for more than $100 million and Opcity, acquired by News Corp for $210 million.
And its portfolio company, CS Disco recently raised $83 million and moved its headquarters from Houston to Austin. And OJO Labs recently raised $45 million. Its other investments include TrustRadius, Infocyte and Mavenir.
“LiveOak was an
outstanding partner for our business,” Chris Loughlin, CEO of Digital
Pharmacist, said in a news release. “As the lead investor and most active board
member, they supported us through the challenging and successful times. They
helped us develop and execute our strategy of building a network of 7,500
pharmacists and pharmacy owners and played an enormous role in sourcing and
closing key hires — their team was critical in empowering our vision into the
reality of becoming the definitive leader in our category.”
Fund II will continue to
focus on entrepreneurs in Texas
“The fund’s focus will still be on first institutional funding for startups headquartered in Texas’ four largest tech hubs: Austin, Houston, Dallas and San Antonio,” according to a news release. “Initial investments will range from $2 million to $4 million and scale up to $10 million over the full company life cycle.”
