At a Youth Peace Summit held at the John Knox Ranch in Wimberley, Ryan Jordan saw how young men and women from 20 countries bonded.

One of the ways was through dance.

Even though the teenagers spoke different languages and came from a variety of cultures and backgrounds, they all liked music and dance, said Jordan, who served as executive director of the Austin-based Amala Foundation, which hosted the summit.

That summit is where the idea for DanceFight, a mobile dance competition platform, began. To bring the project to life, Jordan teamed up with Rich Sloan to co-found Virtual Arts, maker of the DanceFight app. Jordan and Sloan have experience in consumer mobile apps and music-tech ventures.

Last week, Virtual Arts closed on $2 million in seed-stage funding to further develop the app, which is available for Apple devices right now. With the funding, Jordan plans to create an Android app for the Google Play Store that will be available in October. The startup also plans to expand internationally later this year. Investors include Quake Capital Partners, Sound Media Ventures, VSCO’s CEO and Co-Founder Joel Flory, and Thunderstruck Dance Competitions.

Also, Virtual Arts plans to expand and re-brand the app beyond dance competitions to include singing, comedy, rap, cheerleading, basketball trick shots, skateboarding, and other action sports, Jordan said.

“Any way kids want to compete,” he said.

 The skills-based platform is aimed at Generation Z, primarily 13 to 24-year-old youths who grew up with mobile devices, he said.

Other apps like TikTok and Instagram’s new “Reels” let people watch dance videos. But DanceFight is different because it encourages interactivity and pairs up dancers in side by side competitions and lets viewers decide the winner. The dance moves are whatever the dancer decides. They are only limited by their imagination and creativity.

“In the app, people are dancing in many different ways from break dancing to hip hop,” Jordan said.

Work on the app started a year and a half ago, Jordan said. It was released in the Apple App Store about eight weeks ago and it received the designation in the as “Apps We Love.” DanceFight is free to use. Virtual Arts makes money from in-app purchases and through ads and sponsorships, Jordan said.

DanceFight is also working with major record labels including Sony Music Entertainment, Warner Music Group, and Universal Music Group for dance challenges. It gives dancers access to millions of songs to create or join a challenge. DanceFight is also working with musicians like Pitbull to use the app to introduce new music and dance challenges, Jordan said.

DanceFight has also partnered with artificial intelligence company Hive AI to block any inappropriate content, Jordan said. And the app excludes commenting and direct messaging to prevent bullying and harassment, he said.

“We created a safe space for kids to express themselves fully,” Jordan said.

DanceFight also never shows vote totals, just a winner, Jordan said. DanceFight has leaderboards and players earn points for participating in dance competitions as well as for winning them, he said. The focus is on inclusivity and creating an environment where everyone feels welcome, he said.

“Competition is a way to have fun,” Jordan said.

DanceFight also plans to create an equity pool for participants and to reward them for contributing to the platform, Jordan said.

Virtual Arts has 11 full-time employees and six part-time employees. It recently hired Blake Gardner, former Perk Chief Technology Officer, Ben Rose, former head of growth for Pandora, and Norma Ventura, a former Creative Strategist at Khoros. In the next year, DanceFight plans to add 20 more employees. Right now everyone is working virtually during the pandemic, but eventually, they plan to rent office space at Vuka in Austin, Jordan said.

Since the COVID-10 pandemic, Austin-based Fetch has seen a 59 percent increase in volume for its package delivery service to apartments.

As e-commerce explodes in popularity, apartment complexes have turned to Fetch to handle the crush of package deliveries.

The company has almost doubled the number of communities they serve this year with more than 120,000 apartment homes under contract.

And this week, Fetch, a last-mile package delivery service aimed at apartment dwellers, announced it has closed on $18 million in funding.

Iron Gate Capital and Pando Ventures led the round and were joined by existing investors Signal Peak Ventures, Silverton Partners, Seamless, and Venn Ventures. Fetch plans to use the funding to enter new markets, and in sales and marketing and to invest in its warehouse strategy and delivery technology.

Previously, Fetch raised $10.5 million in Series A funding last year. To date, the company, founded in 2016, has raised more than $32 million.

According to Scott Carman, Managing Partner of Pando Ventures, package volume will continue to remain high as ecommerce shopping becomes more commonplace.

“The increased number of deliveries that apartment communities have been forced to deal with in recent months is something that is here to stay,” Carman said in a news release. “The Fetch model takes that burden off the shoulders of on-site teams, which is why we’re seeing so many property management companies make the switch. Moving forward, Fetch’s expansion is crucial to the multifamily industry’s collective effort to provide prompt, reliable, and customized package delivery for renters. That’s why we’re proud to be part of their Series B funding effort, and their push to serve new markets and new clients.”

“This fundraise and our fast growth in the middle of a pandemic is a testament to our team’s dedication and hard work,” Fetch Founder and CEO Michael Patton said in a news release.

ICON, the Austin-based startup that builds homes with its giant 3-D printer using concrete as substrate, on Wednesday announced it has closed on $35 million in funding.

Previously, the company raised $9 million in seed-stage funding.

ICON is arguably one of Austin’s most innovative startups tackling big problems like building homes for the city’s homeless population. It teamed up with Mobile Loaves and Fishes last year to build six 3-D printed homes for Community First! Village, a 51-acre master-planned development in Austin.

The company has received other accolades landing on the Austin Chamber of Commerce’s A-List of hottest startups last year. Time Magazine also named the company one of the best inventions of 2018. Popular Science named ICON one of the best 100 Greatest Innovations of 2018.

Moderne Ventures led the Series A round of investment. Other investors include international architecture firm BIG-Bjarke Ingels Group, CAZ Investments, Citi, Crosstimbers Ventures, Ironspring Ventures, Next Coast Ventures, Oakhouse Partners, Trust Ventures, Vulcan Capital, and Wavemaker Partners.

“Traditional building and construction techniques have not improved since B.C., they have only become more expensive,” Constance Freedman, the Founder, and Managing Partner at Moderne Ventures said in a news statement. “The results are vast deltas in affordability, limitations on design, and both time and efficiency challenges. I believe we will see an evolution of the entire home-buying value chain, especially when integrated with other technologies like digital transactions and augmented reality. Consumers will be able to order, build, design, and purchase a brand-new home in a matter of days–something that’s truly innovative and truly disruptive. We are excited to support ICON as it continues to change the world.”

“In early 2018, there were no 3D-printed homes in North America, and today, there are almost twenty and we’re gearing up for hundreds more,” Jason Ballard, Co-Founder and CEO of ICON, said in a news release. “We anticipate more high-velocity progress in the years ahead to help bring housing and construction into the modern world and in-line with humanity’s highest hopes. The present challenges the world is facing due to new coronavirus have only emphasized the tremendous gap between the housing that we have and the housing that we need. We are grateful to those who have believed in our mission from the beginning and are excited to have a larger team of global investors joining us in our belief that the housing of our future must be different than the housing we have known.”

ICON’s new round of funding will accelerate the development of its printers, create a variety of home types and designs, and enhance its core technology.

ICON unveiled its first 3D printer and successfully secured a building permit and printed a home in Austin in March 2018. And a year later at SXSW, ICON unveiled its next-generation Vulcan 3-D printer and announced strategic projects in the U.S. and Mexico.

 In addition to the Mobile Loaves & Fishes project, in 2020, ICON built 3D-printed homes in Mexico alongside nonprofit partner, New Story. ICON also partnered with the Defense Innovation Unit and the United States Marine Corps to train Marines to operate its technology and complete a field demonstration print at Camp Pendleton.

ICON is also hiring with “numerous roles across robotics, off-planet construction, materials science, software engineering, architecture, building science and operations.”

Despite the novel coronavirus pandemic, deals are still getting done in Austin’s startup community.

Austin-based SpyCloud announced on Tuesday that it has closed on $30 million in additional venture capital funding.

To date, the cybersecurity company, founded in 2016, has raised $58.5 million, according to Crunchbase.

SpyCloud plans to use the funds raised to expand its product and engineering teams and build new ways to detect and prevent fraud.

The company has created an anti-fraud platform that specializes in preventing account takeover by criminals. SpyCloud’s software can find vulnerabilities in a company’s computer system before cybercriminals can strike. SpyCloud’s software flags employees and customer accounts that have security issues early on. And the company checks to make sure the accounts have not been exposed and passwords are secure.

Centana Growth Partners led SpyCloud’s Series C investment, with participation from all existing investors: M12 (Microsoft’s venture fund), Altos Ventures, Silverton Partners, and March Capital Partners.

“Criminals work together to steal information and find creative ways to monetize it. As a result, even the most careful and sophisticated organizations are vulnerable,” Ted Ross, SpyCloud CEO and co-founder said in a news release. “SpyCloud will continue to pursue new and innovative ways to stay ahead of criminals and provide solutions that make the internet a safer place for individuals and businesses.”

The pandemic has affected SpyCloud’s business. Its services are in big demand because scams have proliferated online since the lockdowns began in March. SpyCloud researchers found 139,000 new web domains related to the virus with multiple scams designed to steal people’s personal information.

“SpyCloud’s approach to fraud prevention is helping businesses protect themselves and their customers at a time when threats are more pervasive than we’ve ever seen. We heard from major financial institutions and a wide range of enterprises that SpyCloud’s solutions are critically important to their anti-fraud efforts,” Eric Byunn, partner at Centana Growth Partners who joins SpyCloud’s board., said in a news release. “We’re proud to help them continue the fight and discover new ways to protect both companies and consumers from these evolving threats.”

“With so many people now working from home and multiple family members sharing devices with a mix of personal and professional applications, attack surfaces have increased significantly. Criminals are certainly taking full advantage of these new opportunities to exploit your employees and their family members,” Ross said.

Cybercriminals are able to break into a company’s computer system using stolen credentials. They can then steal financial information or intellectual property and damage a company’s reputation. SpyCloud’s system is designed to catch them before they breach the system.

The novel coronavirus pandemic has created a whole lot of changes, making people adapt faster than a coyote chasing a roadrunner across the Chihuahuan Desert of West Texas.

It has also given rise to the quarantine cocktail party on Zoom. People who once crowded Austin’s bars for meetups and happy hours, now congregate online to imbibe a beverage from their homes with friends and colleagues. Pets and kids also frequently make cameo appearances in these informal gatherings.

On Thursday, Naturally Austin and SKU teamed up to host “The End of Summer Cocktail Sling Virtual Happy Hour.” About 70 people participated in the online event via Zoom from Dallas, Austin, Seattle, Minneapolis, and Colorado. Those who signed up early got a box of goodies delivered to them with cocktail recipes featuring Austin beverages.

The box contained local products like Deep Eddy Vodka, Austin Eastciders watermelon seltzer, Waterloo sparkling water, Meridian Hive lemon, Soley Mango Passion, Tequila Sheela and more to make a variety of cocktails. The box also had snacks from Yellowbird Sauce, Chinook Seedery, Rockit Snacks, Karma Nuts, and Krakatoa Hot Chips. The assortment showcased just how much Austin’s consumer packaged goods industry has grown in the past decade.

To kick off the event, Chris Ivey from Dragon Spirits Marketing gave a drink demo, mixing up the Corkless Soley Sangaria with a can of Corkless pinot grigio, HEB blood orange Italian soda, Mango Passion Soley and frozen mixed fruit. The kit also contained a recipe for a Mango Margarita using Tequila Sheela Reposado, Soley Mango Passion, simple syrup and a squeeze of lime served over ice. Participants had all of the ingredients to follow along at home, including a lime. Next, the event featured four breakout rooms with sessions on marketing, financing, direct to consumer selling and packaging and design.

The idea for the happy hour event came about after Michelle Breyer, chief operation officer of SKU, was having a socially distanced glass of wine with Emily Kealey, executive director at Naturally Austin.

“We were both talking about how we missed the live gatherings where you could share a drink with the CPG community,” Breyer wrote in an email response to questions. “And we decided to come up with a way to do something virtually.”

Overall, CPG startups have fared better than those in many other industries during the Pandemic, especially if they had a strong e-commerce presence with direct to consumer sales and Amazon sales, Breyer said. Companies with cleaning products and wellness products have done really well, she said.

Nationwide, stay-at-home orders have driven increased demand for consumer packaged goods, according to the Consumer Brands Association, a trade group for the industry, based in Arlington, Va. In fact, the industry grew almost 10 percent in May of 2020, compared to the same month a year ago. And panic buying in March sent CPG purchases up 21 percent compared to the same month a year ago.

“Access to capital has been challenging for some startups, especially those who didn’t already have lines of credit,” Breyer said. “In terms of investment, deals are still getting done.”

But shipping and logistics have presented new problems with supply chain issues, Breyer said.

“One of our founders from Track 8 had a new product that was being manufactured in China, and when the pandemic hit, everything temporarily came to a standstill.”

SKU and Naturally Austin plan to host more virtual cocktail events in the future.

“Austin’s CPG industry has an amazing sense of community who really enjoys getting together,” Breyer said. “That’s been one of the hardest parts – not seeing everybody. The End of Summer Cocktail Sling Party was a chance to fill the void until we can all gather again in person.”

By LAURA LOREK, Publisher of Silicon Hills News

With remote work becoming routine, more conversations are moving to informal communications channels like Facebook messenger, Slack, and direct messages.

“All of these platforms are just going bonkers,” said Kevin Brinig, CEO and Co-Founder of LitLingo. “Things that have traditionally been nonchalant communications have all moved to the digital realm now.”

Training people how to communicate appropriately in these channels as well as email, text, and other platforms is the sweet spot of LitLingo. The Austin-based startup employs artificial intelligence and natural language processing databases to help organizations communicate more effectively.

On Monday, LitLingo announced that it has closed a $2 million seed round led by Austin-based LiveOak Venture Partners. The company plans to use the funds to further develop its software and to hire additional engineers. LitLingo has 5 employees now. The company signed a lease at Industrious, a coworking space in downtown Austin, a few weeks before the pandemic lockdown in March and its staff have been working remotely ever since.

LitLingo’s Co-Founders Brinig and Todd Sifleet met at a ride-sharing company they worked at together in the San Francisco Bay area. They both ended up moving to Austin. And in January of 2019, they came up with the idea for LitLingo to provide AI-powered monitoring, prevention, and training solutions in real-time across a variety of communications channels.

LitLingo’s platform can help companies avoid costly lawsuits and build stronger culture, Brinig said. It can correct employee’s communication in real-time and flag inappropriate content and train employees on the best way to communicate, he said.

Working in the technology industry, Brinig and Sifleet saw people make mistakes with their communications, not in a malicious way, but by saying slightly the wrong thing, Brinig said.

“It happens in every single industry especially with the rise of remote work,” Brinig said. “And that kind of was the initial instigator for us to start the company.”

Inappropriate messages are happening every single day in all kinds of companies, Brinig said.

“Where people’s meaning and what they intend to say is not actually what they say and that causes a lot of headaches for employees, customers, and management,” he said. “It just creates a lot of friction in the universe for any organization.”

Over time, LitLingo’s system can evolve to be customer-specific, domain-specific, Sifleet said.

“And that’s one of the things that is great about artificial intelligence, you’re always learning and getting better,” Sifleet said. “Your system is more powerful in three months than it was three months before, which is really exciting.”

The founder and CEO of DISCO, which makes AI-powered software for electronic discovery services for law firms, told Krishna Srinivasan, managing partner of LiveOak, about LitLingo. DISCO is also a portfolio company of LiveOak.

LitLingo’s real-time platform can tell people if there is a risk in what they are typing, Srinivasan said.

“It’s like Grammarly for business communications,” he said.

Grammarly developed software that uses artificial intelligence and natural language processing to correct people’s grammar mistakes in real-time.

LitLingo’s platform adds another layer of business intelligence on natural language processing software and it can detect hateful language and other things that people need to be more careful in typing, Srinivasan said. It minimizes toxic language, he said.

“People need to be careful about what they write and what they say,” Srinivasan said. “Companies need to be more culturally aware and the sensitivities in the modern age.”

LitLingo also met LiveOak Venture Partners’ criteria for investment. The company’s founders have extensive backgrounds in the technology industry tackling complex problems, and they also have a clear understanding of the market for their product, Srinivasan said.

“It’s an incredibly hard problem to do it across different types of platforms and do this in real time and not be annoying,” Srinivasan said.

The addressable market is massive, said Brinig

“Any organization can glean insights from its own data and improve,” he said. “Early adopters will have a competitive edge when they are adopting technology like with LitLingo you can improve customer service, which is a function of every single industry. You can improve sales language.”

If you think about a team that is selling a new product, people can make mundane mistakes like guaranteeing something that they don’t have authorization to guarantee, Brinig said.

“Our software can pick up that kind of language and make sure it’s being used in the most appropriate way,” he said. “At the end of the day, it’s really a real-time training platform.”

With informal communications channels like Slack companies need to be thoughtful and mindful about the culture they are creating, Brinig said.

“The employees that you have, you want to create the best environment for them,” he said. “If you can do a really great job at that you have happier teams, happier individuals and less churn”

LitLingo is another tool in the toolbox to help people be more effective communicators in a business environment, Sifleet said.

LitLingo integrates with Slack, Zendesk, Gmail and Office 365 with a couple more coming down the pike, Brinig said.

“If everyone had the training of your best customer service agent, that email would never have gone out,” Brinig said. “That’s what we are trying to do. We are trying to take your expertise and encode it into an AI system that is applicable to everyone.”

BigCommerce is Austin’s latest startup to go public.

BigCommerce Holdings’ shares were priced Tuesday night at $24 a share. It went public on the Nasdaq stock exchange opening at $68 a share on Wednesday morning and nearly tripled in price on its first day. Within three minutes of trading, the stock was halted for volatility, according to Business Insider.

BigCommerce’s stock, traded under the ticker symbol BIGC, closed at $72,27, up 201 percent, according to Yahoo Finance.

At one point during the day, BigCommerce’s stock hit a high of $93.99.

BigCommerce offered 9 million shares of its Series 1 common stock at $24 a share and raised $216 million.

BigCommerce makes a software as a service ecommerce platform. It competes with Shopify, based in Ottowa, Canada, that trades on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol SHOP. Shopify’s stock closed at $1,094, up 1 percent on Wednesday.

BigCommerce has customers in more than 120 countries that use BigCommerce to create their online stores including Ben & Jerry’s, Skullcandy, Sony and Woolrich.

BigCommerce, founded in 2009, has received $219.2  million in funding from Goldman Sachs, SoftBank Capital, American Express, Telstra Ventures, General Catalysts, Revolution Growth and Floodgate, according to Crunchbase. BigCommerce has offices in San Francisco, London and Sydney and has more than 400 employees.

“As some of our customers remember, co-founders Mitchell Harper and Eddie Machaalani launched BigCommerce in 2009 with the goal to make it easier for small businesses to sell online,” Brent Bellm, CEO of BigCommerce, wrote in a blog post. “Ecommerce accounted for less than 6% of total U.S. retail sales at the time, but Eddie and Mitch saw the great potential for small businesses to succeed if they had an easy-to-use, affordable ecommerce platform.”

The pandemic has also accelerated the adoption of online shopping and led to an even greater demand for BigCommerce’s software, Bellm wrote.

The company plans to use proceeds from its initial public offering to further invest in its software, he said.

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By LAURA LOREK, Publisher of Silicon Hills News

Ceresa, a leadership development platform, announced Wednesday that it has raised $1 million in seed funding.

Austin-based Next Coast Ventures and LiveOak Venture Partners led the round.

Ceresa plans to use the funds to expand product development. It has created a data-driven, personalized program called the Ceresa Leadership Accelerator that provides 100 percent virtual coaching, mentoring, and support for startups to Fortune 500 companies.

“We believe that the lack of diverse leadership in corporations today is not because of a skills gap, it’s an access gap,” said Anna Robinson, co-founder and CEO. “There is a lack of access to role models, mentors, coaches, and high-impact leadership resources for underrepresented groups.”

Ceresa did a few pilot programs in 2018 and officially launched in 2019. The company, based at 1702 E. 6^th street in downtown Austin, has 11 employees and plans to add a few more in the next six months, Robinson said.

The program starts off  by having participants write a mission statement and they must answer the question posed by a Mary Oliver poem “tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” Participants must also make a list of eight people they wish to get feedback from and a questionnaire about them is sent out to those people to answer anonymously. At the end of the first few months, Ceresa has dozens of data points to use to match that person with the perfect mentor. Then they meet once a month with a structured agenda.

“For participants, the impact has been even higher than I even thought it would be,” Robinson said. “It’s a very deep journey for people. It’s quite transformative.”

“In the matching, there is often a little X factor that is the magic in the match,” Robinson said. “It’s hard to say what it is because it’s different for everyone. But we’re looking for that and we’re trying to draw it out of them for their match.”

In one case, Ceresa was matching a data scientist with a technical expert at Disney who was an executive who ran animal programs and animal animation for its studios. It was a really great match, Robinson said.

“The one thing we found in the match is they had both been zookeepers,” she said.

People who have gone through Ceresa’s nine-month program reach out to Ceresa all the time and tell them how much the program has changed their lives, Robinson said.

The platform is virtual, easy, affordable, research-driven with credible content, and has a focus on diversity, Robinson said.

There were a few different pieces that drove Robinson to create the Ceresa platform.

Robinson had been at McKinsey for about 12 years and she wanted to do something more mission-driven. She left as a partner but didn’t know what she wanted to do. She had a health scare that just gave her the realization that she needed to focus on the lack of diversity from a gender perspective in leadership. She has three young daughters and that provided even further motivation to change the status quo.

“I kind of knew it, but when I was looking at all the data with fresh eyes, I saw that we literally made no change at the top in two generations,” Robinson said. “That was a bit of oh my gosh, realizing that my daughters could have these same conversations in another 40 years.”

In Fortune 500 companies, there are 33 female CEOs, less than 7 percent and only three Black CEOs, less than 1 percent, barely changing in a generation, according to Ceresa. 

That’s when Robinson decided to do something to change that with Ceresa, which derives its name from Ceres, a Roman goddess of agriculture, fertility, grains, the harvest, and motherhood. Robinson founded the company with tech executive Nicole Tanzillo.

The platform is extremely flexible. And the journey for the participant is the same no matter what stage the company is at, Robinson said.

Ceresa is not a training platform, she said. Its theory of change is that while there are some core skills that are needed to progress in a career, the focus is on leadership development.

“Things that differentiate people who have a path to the top are those people that have more self-awareness, they actually have access to coaching that helps them do that reflection and set their goals,” Robinson said. “They also have access to these broader networks of mentors. That can happen organically for certain people. But for a lot of people that is just missing.”

Ceresa is focused on letting people learn from people who have “walked the path you want to walk,” Robinson said.

“That’s what is missing for a lot of people that don’t have that privileged access to networks,” Robinson said.

McKinsey’s leadership program is one of the best in the world, Robinson said. And yes, it is focused on skills building, but really it is an apprenticeship program, Robinson said. It is also focused on softer skills building, and a lot of people don’t have access to those kinds of programs, she said.

“I had incredible mentors there and that just doesn’t exist for so many people,” she said.

The platform can be particularly helpful for young women who may struggle to find a leadership mentor among male colleagues. In the wake of the #Metoo movement, male executives have reported that they have been more reluctant to mentor a female colleague, according to research done by Survey Monkey and the Lean In Foundation.

Ceresa solves that problem because the platform is virtual and structured. It stays on topic, Robinson said.

The people going through the program are mostly first-time managers through vice presidents, Robinson said. They have had everyone from 23-year-olds in their first jobs to senior vice presidents and general managers later in their careers, she said.

“Everyone can benefit from it,” she said.

To measure the impact the program is having, Ceresa measures the engagement rate with its platform, which is more than 90 percent, Robinson said. The company also does satisfaction surveys and its satisfaction rates are 4.8 out of 5 points, she said. They also track feedback data on what participants want to work on, she said. As a result, a company in the program can get great insights on things it needs to do to retain and support employees, Robinson said.

LiveOak Venture Partners invested in Ceresa because the startup is led by an experienced team, and they are solving a big problem for companies in a disruptive technology-enabled fashion, said Krishna Srinivasan, founder partner at LiveOak Venture Partners.

Companies are looking for scalable and efficient ways to develop their talent and Ceresa has the solution, Srinivasan said.

“Ceresa, with a novel technology-enabled platform, has quickly surged as a leader to tackle this vast, underserved market and already demonstrated evidence of huge business and cultural impact for some of the thought-leading corporations in this arena,” he said.

Next Coast saw the potential of Ceresa’s platform from its first discussions with the founders, Mike Smerklo, co-founder and managing director at Next Coast Ventures, said in a news release.

“Ceresa is changing the face of leadership development – bringing together a user-first platform with a modern leadership curriculum to transform how enterprises develop their talent,” Smerklo said. “We are excited about what’s to come.”

Breyer Capital has announced plans to open a new office in Austin.

The Silicon Valley-based venture capital and private equity firm, founded in 2006, is already an investor in Austin-based OJO Labs and Swivel.

“I personally will be spending significant time in the city, investing in new opportunities and working alongside longtime friends and colleagues,” Jim Breyer, CEO, and Founder of Breyer Capital wrote in a post “Introducing Breyer Capital Austin” on Medium on Tuesday.

Breyer is one of Silicon Valley’s most successful VCs. He was an early investor in Facebook and has invested in “more than 40 companies that have had successful IPOs or mergers including Etsy, Marvel Entertainment and Legendary Entertainment,” according to Forbes. Breyer is also on Forbes’ list of the world’s billionaires with a 2020 net worth of $2.5 billion.

“Breyer is the brother-in-law of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and his wife, U.S. Secretary of Transportation Elaine Chao,” according to Forbes.

“Breyer Capital’s Silicon Valley presence remains as important as ever, and at the same time, Austin offers a remarkable new frontier of opportunity,” Breyer wrote.

In his post, Breyer writes that “Austin today resembles a globally fascinating and fast-advancing geographic hub.”

He cites Austin’s “impressive pool of creative and dedicated women and men,” which is contributing to the city’s “robust climate of innovation.”

Breyer reports that he has spent a lot of time in Austin both personally enjoying films and music and professionally.

Breyer got to know Austin in the 1980s as a Dell board member and he considers Michael Dell and Mike Maples, a former Austin entrepreneur turned Silicon Valley VC, as friends.

Breyer spent 28 years at Accel Ventures before launching his own firm. He received his bachelor’s degree from Stanford University and a Master of Business Administration from Harvard Business School.

“Despite the fact that this is a historically tough moment for our nation and the world, Austin’s future, from my perspective, has never been brighter,” Breyer writes.

In his post, Breyer also cites the recent decision by Tesla to put a $1.1 billion plant in the Austin area as another reason to be optimistic about the city’s future. He also mentions major local investments by Facebook, Google, Oracle, and Apple.

“Some of the best founders I’ve backed in Silicon Valley started their careers at large companies,” Breyer said. “I predict that many founders and innovators will gain valuable experience working for exceptional companies in Austin and then stay in the city to build something themselves.”

Another big factor in Austin’s ability to innovate stems from the University of Texas at Austin and its “entrepreneurial and technical programs and leaders,” according to Breyer.

The Breyer Capital office is located at 301 West Ave, Suite 200, in downtown Austin.

Tesla has picked Austin for its $1.1 billion Gigafactory that will make Cybertrucks, Semi, Model 3, and Model Y electric vehicles.

Elon Musk, Founder and CEO of Tesla, made the announcement Wednesday during Tesla’s second-quarter earnings call with analysts.

“We’re going to make it a factory that’s going to be stunning. It’s right on the Colorado River,” Musk said. “We’re actually going to have a boardwalk where there is going to be a hiking and biking trail. It’s going to be basically an ecological paradise: birds in the trees, butterflies, fish in the stream. It’s going to be open to the public as well.”

Tesla’s plant will be located in eastern Travis County on 2,100 acres at SH 130 and Harold Green Road. It’s five minutes from the Austin-Bergstrom International Airport and about 15 minutes from downtown, Musk said. The site is currently a sand and gravel site that houses a concrete batch plant. Tesla paid $5.3 million for the various parcels of land, according to its filing with the Texas Comptroller’s Office.

In reports submitted to Travis County government officials, Tesla representatives have said they wanted to begin construction on the plant in the third quarter of 2020.

Tesla, based in Palo Alto, makes electric cars and last year it launched the Tesla Cybertruck, with prices starting at $39,000. It is expected to enter production next year. Telsa’s main plant is in Fremont, California.

Tesla plans to grow its California operations as well as the Texas site, Musk said.

“This is a nice split between California and Texas,” he said.

Musk also gave a shoutout to Tulsa, Oklahoma, which was in the running for the new plant location, along with Austin. Musk said he would keep Tulsa in mind for future expansions.

The Tesla electric vehicle plant will create 5,000 new jobs. And Tesla has pledged to hire at least 50 percent of its employees from Travis Country. Tesla’s jobs will pay more than $35,000 a year with benefits including equity in the company or its cash equivalent.

Governor Greg Abbott tweeted a picture of himself with Musk and issued a statement calling Tesla “one of the most exciting and innovative companies in the world.”

“Texas has the best workforce in the nation and we’ve built an economic environment that allows companies like Tesla to innovate and succeed,” Abbott said. “Tesla’s Gigafactory Texas will keep the Texas economy the strongest in the nation and will create thousands of jobs for hard-working Texans. I look forward to the tremendous benefits that Tesla’s investment will bring to Central Texas and to the entire state.”

Last week, Travis County Commissioners voted to approve a 20-year economic incentive package for the Tesla project, which was dubbed the Colorado River Project.

“In addition to the 5,000 new jobs and $1 billion facility investment, Travis County has been able to take a tract of land that paid $64,000 in tax revenue over 10 years and turn it into a tract that will pay $8 million in tax revenue during the same period,” Travis County Judge Sam Biscoe said in a news release. “I am proud of the agreement we have reached. It strikes a balance between incentivizing Tesla, securing significant community benefits, and ensuring the protection of workers and the environment.”

The Tesla plant faced some pushback from local residents and union leaders. Several people spoke out against the plant during weeks of virtual meetings of the Travis County Commissioners Court. Their main concerns were that Tesla was not paying enough for workers to live in the Austin area and they wanted reassurances that the labor force would be treated well during the COVID-19 Pandemic, including construction workers. Others spoke out against giving tax breaks to Musk, a billionaire and Tesla, now one of the largest automakers in the world. There were also concerns about increased traffic and plant emissions impacting the environment.

The Del Valle Independent School District board of trustees also approved a tax incentive deal for Tesla worth nearly $50 million over 10 years.

Tesla representatives have said they plan to work closely with the Del Valle school district as well as local colleges on workforce development.

“We are excited to welcome our new neighbors Tesla into the DVISD community,” Del Valle ISD Board of Trustees President Rebecca Birch said in a news release. “From the start, their support, generosity, and commitment to our students has been unwavering. Based on the overwhelmingly positive feedback at both of our public board meetings, this sentiment is shared not only with our board and superintendent, but our community at large. As demonstrated in other locations, Tesla can make a big impact on student learning. We are looking forward to developing multiple pathways to enrich our students and community’s lives with programming and employment opportunities. We are confident that Tesla will be ‘DV Proud’ partnering with us on the journey of preparing students for a successful future.”

The Texas plant will be Tesla’s third gigafactory in the U.S. and fifth worldwide. It already has gigafactories in Nevada and New York and a gigafactory in Shanghai, China, and a new one in Berlin, Germany. The factory in China began producing vehicles this year. The German plant is still under construction.

“The long-term sustainable advantage of Tesla is manufacturing,” Musk said.

The Greater Austin Chamber of Commerce estimates for every position created at the Gigafactory, an estimated four indirect and induced jobs will be created in the region.

Gary Farmer, the Chair of Opportunity Austin, the Greater Austin Chamber of Commerce’s five-county economic development initiative, said: “Tesla’s decision to locate its news Gigafactory in Austin will expand and enhance our innovative culture while also providing new and exciting career opportunities for all segments of our Central Texas workforce.”

“The company’s pioneering spirit and advanced manufacturing technologies will be instrumental in our region’s economic recovery and our sustainable growth for the longer term,” he said.