Spotlight on The Fund Austin
Don’t Mess With Texas
Albert Swantner, Cara McCarty, Janice Omadeke, and Andy Ambrose.
The Fund set out in 2018 to catalyze founder communities, bringing together the support of a good angel network and the decision making speed of a top-tier fund. We began in New York and then felt the pull to Los Angeles and London as we saw similarly disparate and uncoordinated groups of founders writing angel checks, and we thought the model could help bring together incredible helpers into a single check and community to support founders.
In October we’ve been proud to announce The Fund Austin, our seventh geography after New York, Los Angeles, London, the Rockies, the Midwest, and Australia. We’re no stranger to the fact that Austin and the broader Texas ecosystem is the fourth largest in the United States, and one of the fastest growing locations for startups to plant roots. As we thought about who best to take this forward with clear eyes and full hearts under the lights, we couldn’t be more delighted to be adding Andy Ambrose, Janice Omadeke, Cara McCarty, and Albert Swantner as partners leading up the charge in Austin. They each bring with them an incredible background as founders and operators able to steer a community of like-minded folks supporting the next generation. Welcome Andy, Janice, Cara, and Albert to The Fund Fam!
Among limited partners investing in the Texas branch of The Fund are Dan Graham, founder and partner at Notley; Holly Tachovsky, chief innovation officer at ISO and co-founder of BuildFax; Eric Starkloff, president and CEO of NI, which has developed several diversity initiatives; Adelle Archer, founder and CEO of Eterneva; and Jane Ko, author of popular food blog A Taste of Koko.
"As much as Austin is an open place, it's also hard to just crack-in,” says Andy Ambrose. “I think our network of founders, and being a founders-led fund, is a fast track into that. We're getting referrals all the time from our adjacent funds' geographical partners, where they're saying 'Hey listen, I've got this amazing deal, you need to talk to this founder and they're relocating to Austin, or they're relocating to Houston,' for example. So I think we're seeing that effect also just having other more mature geographical areas covered. And there's just this Austin thing that's happening, so we're excited about that, too."
See our announcement in Austin Business Journal!
If you’re interested in joining The Fund CLICK HERE!