Venture Capital Profile on Rembrandt Venture Partners by Scott Irwin

Scott Irwin of Rembrandt Venture Partners recently participated in the Texas Venture Growth Forum held in Austin.   Scott has ties to Texas as he grew up in Dallas where he attended St. Mark’s.   He later worked for El Dorado Ventures which invested in several Texas companies including Convio, Ripcode, Store Speed, Triactive, Efficient networks, and Mirage Networks.  

Today he works for Rembrandt Venture Partners which has $325M under management.  They invest $10M to $15M per company over time and look for recurring revenue and SaaS business models in the B2B and enterprise space.  They believe in the high velocity model of growth.

Rembrandt typically takes a minority shareholder position in a syndicate with other investors.  They take a board seat and usually come in on the B or C round. They don’t focus on pre-revenue or Series A companies.

Rembrandt has three partners so they have a lean team with a quick decision making process.  The firm was founded ten years ago by Scott’s partner Gerald Casilli, who was a former operator.  Before that he was a founder of Trinity Ventures in the 80s.

“We’re not looking for growth stage companies who have figured it all out,” said Scott.   “We look for emerging growth.  We’ve been operators and want to be actively involved in the company. We’re comfortable with enterprise businesses.   We’ve sat in their place and know what it’s like to run a company. We can get heavily involved in recruiting and team building.“   They each have fifteen years or more of experience.

Rembrandt invests across the country. When the market is really hot, Scott indicates they invest more in the Bay Area.  When the market cools they look more broadly.   During the frothy times, the growth rates tend to be higher in the Bay Area than anywhere else.  The frothy market can magnify the growth rates and perceived value.

On the other, when the Bay Area crashes, they fall even harder.  In the rest of the country, companies are built with a long term view and in Texas they have excellent engineering and good operational processes so they stand out in a normal environment.  This tends to draw Bay Area investors interest even more. 

To learn more about the Texas Growth Capital Forum visit this link.