15 Local Investors Every Austin Entrepreneur Should Follow on Twitter
Like most things in life, investing is all about people and personal relationships — and only more so at the early stages. Social media is a great opportunity to engage with potential investors in a casual conversation without the pressured a formal pitch. Don’t start by asking them to invest — start by listening to the things they talk about and reply to their comments and questions. Establish a personal relationship first and you’ll find the professional one comes easier.
NOTE: This is not a list of all the investors in Austin — just the ones who are most active on Twitter.
If you’re in Austin and getting started with fundraising, come to the next Intro to Fundraising in Austin meetup at Capital Factory. It’s the first Tuesday of every month at at 4pm.
Andrew Busey is one of the most prolific serial entrepreneurs in Austin and most active Angel investors. He rode the bubble and bust of 1999 with Living.com and iChat and has extensive Silicon Valley connections and perspective. He recently authored an awesome sci-fi book called Accidental Gods. Andrew is wicked smart.
Brett Hurt is one of the most successful serial entrepreneurs in Austin. He founded Coremetrics and Bazaarvoice and is now working on his latest company data.world. Brett is a big thinker who invests in both B2B and B2C. Once he invests, he’s an active supporter with introductions to his wide network of potential investors and employees.
Claire England isn’t an investor herself, but she has an army of them. Claire is the executive director of the Central Texas Angel Network (CTAN) with more than 150 of Austin’s most active angel investors.
Clayton Christopher is a serial entrepreneur in the consumer packaged goods/food & beverage space. He founded Sweet Leaf Tea and Deep Eddy Vodka and now runs a new VC fund to invest in CPG companies called CAVU.
Dan Graham is the founder of Buildasign and also a very active angel investor and social enterprise investor. He recently formed Notley Ventures to consolidate his venture and philanthropic investments as well as help support local events like Philanthropitch and Startup Games.
Gordon Daugherty runs the Capital Factory Accelerator and is one of the most valuable advisors a startup in Austin can have. He blogs and records online video tutorials at Shockwave Innovations so watch his feed for lots of helpful links and practical advice.
Heather Brunner is the CEO of WP Engine and one of the top CEO’s in Austin. She’s Trilogy Alumni and also helped lead Bazaarvoice through it’s fastest growth pre-IPO. Heather knows how to rapidly scale a business and build a world class culture. Her deep rolodex and wide range of experience would be a huge asset to just about any startup.
Jan Ryan is the founder of Social Dynamix (sold to Lithium) and Women@Austin — the largest Austin group for women business leaders. Jan is a tireless champion for diversity and an extremely helpful mentor and angel investor.
Jason Seats helped invent cloud computing before selling his business Slicehost to Rackspace. Then he created Techstars cloud in San Antonio and Techstars Austin before becoming a venture partner for the Techstars investment fund. Jason is also wicked smart.
Joel Trammell was the founder of NetQoS and CacheIQ and one of the senior CEO’s in town who other CEO’s go to for advice. His latest startup Khorus brings his “management system in a box” for other companies to implement. Every year he teaches a CEO training class that anyone would be lucky to get a seat in.
Justin Siegel is the founder of JNJ Mobile — creators of the MocoSpace mobile gaming community. He’s a serial entrepreneur and angel investor who gets consumer internet which is rare in Austin. He’s also an amazing mentor at Capital Factory and Techstars who pays it forward even if he’s not an investor.
Kip McClanahan is a serial entrepreneur turned venture capitalist at Silverton Partners. He was one of first employees at Dell while in high school and then founded Broadjump soon after graduating from UT Austin. That merged with Motive where he worked with Mike Maples, Jr. Kip led the investments in Sparefoot.com and WP Engine and many other great startups in Austin. Kip has a great blog that covers how to make a pitch deck for VC’s.
Mellie Price is a long-time Austinite, founder of Front Gate Tickets, and angel investor. Mellie runs the Capital Factory Fund and recently launched Softmatch to make the market for startup M&A more efficient. She’s an expert in the entertainment industry, real estate, and health care. Mellie is also a champion for LGBT rights and women in tech.
Sara Brand is launching a new venture capital fund focused on investing in women-led businesses that serve the home market including technology and CPG. She has a diverse background in venture investing, the AMD executive team, and even brewing beer.
Shawn Abboud is a retired hedge fund manager that recently moved back to Austin after spending several years in Dubai. He now manages private client capital in Austin for high net worth families. He’s an active investor himself with a very deep network of global relationships as a result of having managed capital at places like Goldman Sachs & Och Ziff Capital. His particular expertise is in consumer, entertainment and sports. I’ve never met another angel investor who hustles as hard for his companies as Shawn.
If you get through all that, you probably want to follow me too.
You might also enjoy this post about investors to follow who are not from Austin.
