Horangic To Leave Austin Ventures

Basic Horangic is leaving Austin Ventures, after having served as a general partner for the past six years. AV sent the following email this morning to its limited partners and other friends of the firm: 

“We wanted to let you know that one of our General Partners, Basil Horangic, has decided to leave Austin to join a venture firm in Silicon Valley. Most of Basil’s recent investments have been headquartered in California, and he foresees many of the types of projects that interest him likely being located there. Basil will continue to represent Austin Ventures on his board seats at least until the end of the year, and will continue to be supportive to all of his investments in any way he can going forward. He also expects to be back in Texas quite often. We wish Basil and his family all the best in California, and look forward to working with him in the future.” 

Horangic began talking a few months back about wanting to move to either the East or West Coasts, in part because his oldest child is planning to begin first grade in the fall. He ultimately settled on Silicon Valley, but declined to divulge his future business address. “I’ll be able to tell you soon,” he says. “But not yet.” 

Horangic adds that he plans to continue to be active with Texas entrepreneurs, but feels that it might be easier to work Texas from California rather than the other way around. More than half of his current portfolio companies are in California. 

I also spoke with Austin Ventures’ John Thornton, and asked why the firm didn’t just open a California satellite office. His answer was that remote offices don’t work “culturally” for the firm: “We’ve thought about it but, truth be told, we didn’t even operate too well with a Dallas office, let alone one in California. 

Horangic focuses on a variety of sectors, including data center equipment, semiconductors/components and EDA/IP. Most recently, he’s become interested in medical imaging. “I’m kind of a serial specialist – every two years I get interested in something else.”