With all of the venture capital being raised by Central Texas companies, things look a bit like the halcyon days of 2000 — right before the bottom fell out from under the dot-com bubble. Will things be different this time?
Austin is hurtling toward achieving the second-highest one-year total of venture capital invested in startups since PwC and CB Insights began tracking those statistics in 1995.
As of Nov. 26, more than $1.5 billion in VC had been invested in Central Texas startups. No matter how the remainder of the year shakes out, it will be the most money raised by local companies since the $2.52 billion raised in 2000, before the dot-com bubble burst…
…Sara Brand, founding general partner of True Wealth Ventures, said she and her partner at the Austin VC firm, Kerry Rupp, “have made a conscious decision to stay away from investing in companies based in Silicon Valley because we have found that the syndicate investors are in the predicament and/or mindset of having to put more money to work than the startups need or sometimes even want.”
That causes valuations to unjustifiably soar, Brand said. But it also drives up “the necessary exit values to get a good return to your [limited partners],” she said. “I don’t think Austin-based VCs or companies are having the same issues as the traditional Silicon Valley based VCs are.”
See original article here.
