8VC became one of the biggest and most prominent venture capital firms in Austin almost as soon as it shifted its headquarters to the Texas capital from San Francisco. Now it’s formalizing a long-standing relationship with a refrigerated storage giant in an effort to identify emerging technologies seen as key to the shipping and logistics sector.
8VC said July 15 it is partnering with Lineage Logistics to build new startups from the ground up and tag-team on investing with existing startups.
Their efforts will be largely focused on supply chain visibility — knowing where products are at any given time, along with indicators like temperature, said Jake Medwell, a partner and co-founder at 8VC.
“Visibility is really the holy grail of the industry because if you have that data, then you essentially have this platform that you can go build a ton of other companies on top of, if you own the data of what is going where and when and how often,” he said. “That’s really, really, really valuable data.”
The effort comes amid increased attention on supply chains and logistics operations disrupted by the Covid-19 pandemic, as well as a series of complicating factors ranging from February’s devastating winter storm in Texas to overcrowded shipping canals.
Under the new partnership, Lineage and 8VC might invest in emerging startups from Austin or anywhere around the globe, and offer their combined industry and tech insights, along with key data, to help accelerate growth.
They’re also planning to work with entrepreneurs to build startups from scratch out of 8VC’s Build program.
“As we continue to build companies in this space, there’s a high likelihood that they will be based in Austin,” Medwell said. “We want to bring the best entrepreneurs here, and we want to work with the best entrepreneurs that are currently in Austin, as well.”
8VC and Lineage have already teamed on several investments in recent years, including deals with Project44, Trackonomy and Baton.
Sudarsan Thattai, Lineage’s chief information officer, aims to help founders build a new generation of logistics technology.
“What I’m really looking forward to is giving opportunities to founders and entrepreneurs in portfolio companies to scale,” he said. “A lot of them struggle finding... real world feedback of what’s actually possible with their technology.”
As part of the partnership, Thattai will be joining 8VC as an advisor, and Medwell will be joining Lineage as an advisor.
Austin is already seen as a hub for logistics innovation, with startups including uShip, Overhaul, Shipwell, ShipStation, Arrive Logistics, Convey and others operating in the space.
“I think it’s one of the top places in the country, and I think it’s only going to get more active,” Medwell said. “I think it’s very centrally located. You typically don’t see the biggest logistics technology companies being built in San Francisco. You see them out of places like Austin, Chicago and kind of more of these centralized hubs.”
8VC was founded in 2015 by Joe Lonsdale, a co-founder of Palantir Technologies, along with Peter Thiel and others. Some of the companies 8VC has invested in include Elon Musk’s The Boring Company — which is setting up shop in the Austin area — as well as Deliverr, Hims, Hive, Oculus and Wish.
It’s currently raising several new funds. Medwell declined to comment on those. But federal filings show progress on several.
One, which seeks to raise $880 million, is called 8VC Opportunities Fund II LP. That’s separate from its flagship fund, which it calls 8VC Fund. That fund is now in its fourth iteration, and the company last year filed paperwork showing it could raise $640 million for 8VC Fund III. The firm in June also filed to raise $640 million for 8VC Fund IV.
While a majority of 8VC investments are in companies outside of Austin, the firm has a history of making investments here.
For example, in February, it joined LiveOak Venture Partners and Next Coast Ventures in a $4 million seed round for Austin-based e-commerce returns and resale software startup FloorFound. It led a $3.1 million seed round for Austin health tech startup DocStation in April. It was also in on a recent $23 million series B round for Hearth, a local startup that created a tool to help contractors manage finances for home repairs.
