LiveOak Venture Partners

Investment decisions rest with the partnership group led by founding partners Krishna Srinivasan and Venu Shamapant, along with partners David Stewart and Mike Marcantonio. The team operates with a generalist but stage-specific mandate, and all four partners sit on portfolio company boards. The partnership structure has not turned over at the senior level since inception, a continuity rare among regional venture firms.

LiveOak has committed publicly to investing exclusively in startups headquartered in Texas, a constraint written into its limited partner agreements. The firm targets the Austin, Houston, and Dallas metropolitan areas specifically. It will occasionally consider a company that relocates its headquarters to Texas before or concurrent with the investment, but it does not lead rounds for companies domiciled elsewhere.

LiveOak leads or co-leads Seed and Series A rounds with initial investments ranging from $500,000 to $15 million. The firm reserves meaningful capital for follow-on participation in Series B and C rounds, which allows it to maintain pro-rata ownership in top-performing portfolio companies. It does not invest at the pre-seed stage or in later-stage growth equity rounds where it did not already hold a board seat.

LiveOak's deal flow derives primarily from its multi-decade network within the Texas technology corridor. The founding partners spent years at Austin Ventures before launching LiveOak, giving them first-look relationships with serial entrepreneurs, university spinouts from UT Austin and Rice, and the growing population of executives exiting successful Texas IPOs. The firm also operates an active platform team that hosts founder summits and office hours across the state to surface companies before they formally raise capital.

LiveOak invests across enterprise software, digital health, fintech, industrial technology, and energy transition. The firm has confirmed positions in companies including DISCO (legal technology), Digital Pharmacist (healthcare SaaS), and Opcity (real estate technology, acquired by Realtor.com). It does not invest in consumer social platforms, pure-play hardware, or biotechnology.

Yes. LiveOak closed its fourth institutional fund at $105 million in 2021 and remains in its active deployment period. The firm has historically maintained a consistent fund size across vintages — approximately $105 million — rather than scaling aggressively, a discipline that aligns fund size with the median Series A round in Texas.

LiveOak raises closed-end venture capital funds with standard ten-year terms, drawing primarily from institutional limited partners including university endowments, foundations, and family offices. The firm has not publicly disclosed its full LP roster, but its consistent re-ups across four funds — including from the State of Texas Teachers Retirement System — suggest sticky institutional support.