AUSTIN, Texas--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Next Coast Ventures, an Austin-based venture capital firm investing in entrepreneurs on the ‘Next Coast’ of innovation, today announced the close of its $130 million second fund. Combined with the firm’s $85 million debut fund, Next Coast Ventures is positioned to expand its investments in early stage, high-growth startups outside the coasts.
“Next Coast Ventures’ progress is a direct result of the hard work and dedication of the founders in our portfolio,” said Michael Smerklo, co-founder and managing director of Next Coast Ventures. “We are incredibly grateful that we get to work with the best entrepreneurs in Next Coast markets and are eager to continue serving as high-growth startups’ local champion in these rising innovation hubs. We have a lot more work to do before reaching our goal, but are grateful we get to share this milestone with our founders and investors that have made it possible.”
Next Coast Ventures is ‘built for entrepreneurs, by entrepreneurs’ with a focus on providing early stage capital to founders building disruptive companies in Next Coast markets across the consumer, enterprise and emerging platform sectors. The firm utilizes the partners’ own experience as entrepreneurs and its Entrepreneurs Council advisory network to provide company-building resources to its portfolio leadership as they scale. The firm has nearly doubled the size of both its internal team and its Entrepreneurs Council in the past six months to meet the needs of its portfolio companies as it continues its expansion.
“Next Coast Ventures has been instrumental to our growth at Everlywell, and they are wholly dedicated to their founders,” said Julia Cheek, founder and chief executive officer of Austin-based, Next Coast Ventures portfolio company, Everlywell. “Their operational experience and ‘think big’ mindset have been a great addition to our board and we are thrilled to have a strong local partner that can provide us with hands-on resources as we scale.”
Since July of this year, Next Coast Ventures has added Zaz Floreani to the deal team as a principal, Jonathan Kaplan as chief operating officer and Sarah Puil as entrepreneur-in-residence. It also added HomeAway Co-founder Brian Sharples, RetailMeNot Founder Cotter Cunningham and SaaS entrepreneur Julian Castelli to its growing Entrepreneurs Council to mentor and advise its portfolio leadership. The firm also announced its first investment out of NCV II in July, leading the $12.5M Series C in Austin-based software review platform, TrustRadius.
“We are very fortunate that our LPs have continued to invest in Next Coast Ventures, we’ve had big goals from the beginning and while we’ve already seen some indicators of success, we plan on continuing to keep our heads down, work hard and do everything we can to serve great entrepreneurs in Austin and other Next Coast markets,” said Thomas Ball, co-founder and managing director of Next Coast Ventures. “We have seen incredible growth in these rising innovation hubs since we founded our firm in 2015 and know that cities like Austin will continue to be a prime example of what is possible outside the coasts.”
Five of the largest U.S. tech hubs outside the Bay Area have produced a combined quarter-trillion-dollars in exit value over the past ten years, according to research by the Founder Collective. Austin has become one of the fastest growing startup ecosystems of these Next Coast markets. By the end of 2019, Austin is on track to reach a two-decade high of venture capital investment.
Next Coast Ventures’ first fund invested in over 30 portfolio companies located in Next Coast markets, including Texas, Montana, Utah and Minnesota. In its second fund, the firm will continue its investment strategy and remain focused on supporting founders’ personal and professional development post-investment.
About Next Coast Ventures
Next Coast Ventures is an Austin-based venture capital firm that partners with entrepreneurs building high-growth companies in ‘Next Coast’ markets. The firm uses macro trends and themes to guide their investment strategy, providing early stage capital to founders scaling companies across the consumer, enterprise and emerging platform sectors. NCV focuses on bringing value to its founders post-investment by equipping its growing portfolio with hands-on, company building resources through its strong industry network, Entrepreneurs Council program and applying the partners’ own operational experience as entrepreneurs. Learn more at www.nextcoastventures.com.
