Austin Venture Association

One Sentence

The Austin Venture Association is a non-profit focused on the greater venture community supporting Austin’s startup ecosystem.

Boilerplate

The Austin Venture Association is an organization for members of the greater venture community: venture capitalists, accelerators, corporates, university incubators, angels, family offices, LPs, growth and private equity, and more. The main focus is on three key areas: amplifying and organizing the local greater venture community, education and professional development, and delivering more and better local startup support.

Longer Description

The Austin Venture Association is an organization for members of the greater venture community: venture capitalists, accelerators, corporates, university incubators, angels, family offices, LPs, and other accredited investors. The main focus is on three key areas: amplifying and organizing the local greater venture community, education and professional development, and delivering more and better local startup support.

The cofounding team involved with creating the Association are: serial entrepreneur, CS Freeland as Executive Director, along with Chris Shonk, cofounder and partner at venture capital firm, ATX Venture Partners, Carl Grant, EVP of Global Business Development at international law firm, Cooley, and Ari Salafia, founder and CEO of local startup, TaxTaker, as Executive Board Members.

A variety of programming that the association intends to launch in the first half of the new year focuses on: job opportunities, mentorship, thought leadership, deal flow, curated events exclusive to members and selected networks, and other efforts focused on career growth.

Latest Updates

The Austin Venture Association had a soft launch event in October 2021 with around one hundred attendees for an invite-only experience.
A few early founding sponsors of the association include: Brex, Connor Group, Cooley, TriNet, CBRE, EarlyGrowth, Cherry Bekaert, SR Group | Compass, Silicon Valley Bank
Announcements will continue to be made about how to join an advisory board, committee, or obtain a standard membership.
Two years ago roughly twenty venture capital firms considered Austin their headquarters. Now, that number is closer to seventy— meaning the actual majority of venture capitalists here are new. This also doesn’t include the 50+ remote workers from funds on the east or west coasts.
There are over 150 organizations in the greater venture community here in town.