Austin Ventures spin-out hits road to raise growth-oriented buyout fund: UPDATED

Firm: Tritium Partners

Target: Unknown

Placement agent: Credit Suisse

Co-founder and Managing Director Phil Siegel previously worked as a general partner at Austin Ventures, where he helped to start and develop its growth equity investment practice, while Co-founder and Managing Director David Lack worked alongside Siegel in the same Austin Ventures group as a partner. Lack’s LinkedIn profile gives his starting date at Tritium Partners as January 2013, suggesting the venture is about a year old.

A third member of the Tritium Partners team is Principal Brett Shobe, who recently was a senior associate at Genstar Capital and before that was an associate at Austin Ventures, according to his LinkedIn profile.

The start-up firm has hired Credit Suisse as its placement agent to help raise what appears to be its first significant fund, according to a source familiar with the effort. The target is not clear, but Credit Suisse generally does not take on clients raising less than $300 million, according to its website. An executive at Tritium Partners declined to comment, citing SEC rules preventing general solicitation of private offerings. Buyouts was unable to reach an executive at Credit Suisse for comment by press time. (UPDATE: A spokeswoman subsequently called to decline comment.)

Within its chosen sectors, Tritium Partners is looking to back cash-flow-positive companies at any stage, although its website notes that most of the investment team’s portfolio companies generated EBITDA of $2 million to $20 million at the time of initial investment. The firm will typically take a majority stake in its companies. And, according to the website, “in most cases, we are partnering with founder(s) who wish to retain a meaningful ownership stake and many who choose to remain actively involved in the business post-investment.”  

Altogether the Tritium Partners team has invested more than $625 million over a decade. Its website lists 14 investments, many of which were made while the founders worked at Austin Ventures.

They include electronic payment processor Century Payments, online vacation rental marketplace HomeAway and truck brokerage Re:Trans; these three are also listed as past investments on the Austin Ventures website, which notes that Century Payments was acquired by WorldPay, Re:Trans was acquired by Tailwind Capital and HomeAway is a public company that trades on the Nasdaq.

Tritium Partners also features on its website 17 executives who are members of its advisory council.