It's been a week of financial milestones for Austin venture capital firm Next Coast Ventures.
On Wednesday, one of its portfolio companies, a California-based smart oven maker named Brava, was scooped up in an acquisition. Then, on Thursday, the investment firm announced the closing of its second fund, a $130 million account that will continue to fuel startups in Austin and beyond.
The new fund, dubbed NVC II, follows up on Next Coast's initial $85 million fund, which has helped it invest in about 30 companies. With the new fund, the firm now has more than $215 million under management (see their portfolio).
While NVC II closed this week, Next Coast has already been making investments out of it. The first was leading a $12.5 million Series C for Austin software review startup TrustRadius in July. In October, it led a $7.5 million Series C for sales software and data startup Tenfold.
“Next Coast Ventures’ progress is a direct result of the hard work and dedication of the founders in our portfolio,” Mike Smerklo, co-founder and managing director of Next Coast Ventures, said in a news release. “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."
The new fund announcement caps about six months of rapid growth at the firm, which has included the build out of its entrepreneurs council with HomeAway co-founder Brian Sharples and RetailMeNot founder Cotter Cunningham, as well as the hiring of Zaz Floreani as a principal and Jonathan Kaplan as COO.
Next Coast Ventures first caught Austin Inno's attention in March 2016 when it filed SEC papers indicating it would raise $50 million. Within a year, it had secured more than $85 million for its first fund and had begun investing -- mostly with $2 million to $5 million checks to back mostly Austin startups, including Dropoff, Phlur, OnRamp and Umuse.
The firm's launch was part of a revival of Austin-based venture capital activity that followed a bit of a lull in the wake of Austin Ventures' decision to shut down its startup investing program.
Other firms that emerged included LiveOak Venture Partners (which closed on a $105M fund earlier this year), Silverton Partners (which closed a $108 million fund last year and this fall filed paperwork to raise a $120 million fund) and Elsewhere Partners (which raised a $70 million fund last summer).
And that's really just the tip of the proverbial iceberg when it comes to venture capital funds in Austin.
A batch of additional firms have also emerged, moved their HQs to Austin or re-upped their investments to provide seed funding, as well as Series A and beyond in some cases, to local startups. Among them are S3 Ventures, ATX Seed Ventures, Ecliptic Capital, True Wealth Ventures, Mithril Capital, Springdale Ventures, Quake Capital, BuildGroup, Moonshots Capital, Trust Ventures, Sante Ventures, Spindletop Capital, MicroVentures and Corsa Ventures. And they join long-standing angel funds and family offices, as well as two of Texas' most active investors, which are also Austin-based -- Capital Factory and Central Texas Angel Network.
