Silverton Partners Closes $144 Million To Invest In Texas-Based Startups

By Amit Chowdhry ● Apr 30, 2020
  • Leading early-stage investment firm Silverton Partners has closed $144 million in capital

Leading early-stage investment firm Silverton Partners has closed $144 million in capital. And the oversubscribed fund will designate $17 million toward the formation of an Opportunity Fund for pro-rata investments in some of the firm’s highest potential portfolio companies.

Fund 5 — which was raised in 2017 — netted $108 million. And in the past two years, Silverton’s seed-funded startups have exited for a combined $3.2 billion. The company’s notable recent exits include Sailpoint, Ping Identity, TrendKite, Favor, WPEngine, Watermark, and SpareFoot.

Fund 6 is going to deploy capital primarily in Texas with 25-30% allocated for out-of-state investments. And Silverton has recently funded startups in emerging markets like New York, Southern California and Utah.

The Opportunity Fund, a first for Silverton, enables investments in later-stage funding rounds for existing portfolio companies, partnering with marquee firms, and without diluting Silverton’s core focus of Seed and Series A investing.

“Texas remains one of the nation’s most interesting and fastest-growing tech markets, with Austin leading the way,” said Silverton General Partner Morgan Flager in a statement. “We’re pleased to have the capital to deploy not only in our home state of Texas but in other up-and-coming markets. And since some of our most successful exits were forged during the 2008 financial crisis, we are excited to help build the next generation of companies that can withstand difficult times and emerge stronger.”

Austin, Texas has been America’s fastest-growing city by population for eight of the past 10 years. And Silverton is the longest-standing active venture firm in Texas.

Silverton Partners—which is led by GP’s Kip McClanahan, Mike Dodd, and Morgan Flager — expects to add 20-25 companies to the Fund 6 portfolio and up to eight positions in the opportunity fund. Plus the firm has been growing steadily, with Tina Dai joining as a Principal from First Round Capital, Roger Chen (whose previous experience was with Genacast Ventures) promoted to Partner, and Alyssa Dadoly (formerly VP Finance) promoted to CFO.