About Us

Knowing the pace and breadth of innovation is increasing, we enable our clients to change with the times with a sense of confidence. We help you see many possibilities, mindful of lessons learned in our years of serial entrepreneurship and venture capital.

What started in 1996 as a boutique venture firm, connected us with amazing entrepreneurs, venture funds, enterprise venture groups and acquisition teams, angels, incubators, universities and family offices. In 2001, we started building a university MBA network to help students learn about venture capital, private equity, due diligence, evaluating companies and pitching new ventures. Today this is known as the G51 Venture Scholars’ program, which has seen more than 350 alumni complete the program.

Starting in 2015, we leveraged our 18 years of VC networks and 14 years of university programming to launch a new research business called G51 Amplify. Today this has transformed into the G51 Studio, where we help our clients strategically scale their startups by connecting interesting and strategic businesses, people, and technology.

Currently, we are not raising a new venture fund but rather leveraging the assets of our combined client base to connect preparation with opportunity. Our partners and extended team continue to participate in direct investing while we continue to review early-stage startups and assisting those that we take a personal interest in by offering feedback, strategic advice, and investment matching, free of charge.

Our inherent goal is to enable human prosperity through the democratization of entrepreneurial education and networks. Our practice of “Paying-It-Forward” and nurturing our career-long networks help make this possible.

History of G51 Capital Management

4 sequential funds
$360MM syndicated to KPCB, NEA, IVP, Polaris Ventures & more
“Gap Keeper” funding the gap between angel and traditional VC (see visual)
Exits to Authoria, Cisco, ADP, SAP & more

Past Portfolio Companies

Active Friends of the Firm

The G51 Team

Rudy Garza, Founding Partner

Mr. Garza is leveraging his history, expertise and resources to build a global network of Universities, Students, Startups, Industry and Family Offices to speed up the pace of Innovation and Job creation with his work at G51 Amplify. The G51 Venture Scholars Program is currently a national initiative in place at 18 top graduate school programs and growing. From Austin to Raleigh-Durham to Boston and Chicago and west to Palo Alto students are learning and collaborating about promising Startups and helping the Startups find referrals, advice and funding. There are over 200 Venture Scholar alumni working in amazing careers at leading companies across the country and internationally. The intellectual horsepower of the cohorts and academic support in the program coupled with the exposure to raw American startup ingenuity is driving continuous organic growth to national and global locations.

His investment and startup experience comes from being the founder and prior managing director of G51 Capital Management, LLC where he focused on the development of all portfolio companies, syndication partnerships and deal flow. Through investing, mentoring as well as serving on portfolio boards, he assisted portfolio companies in defining and then guiding the implementation of well grounded business and marketing strategies. He applied his knowledge of successful business models; go to market strategies with business growth initiatives, capital formation planning and talent sourcing.

Active in the venture business since 1996, he has been an active leader in the venture community, including longstanding participation in National Venture Capital Association and the Texas Venture Capital Association. His firm and the companies in which he has invested have syndicated over $360 million dollars of investment from leading venture firms such as Bain Capital, Polaris Ventures, Morgan Stanley, Institutional Venture Partners, Foundry Group, Floodgate, Silverton Ventures among others; as well as from corporate venture investors like Intel and HP. He has been involved in multiple acquisitions of his portfolio companies by Fortune 500 companies including Cisco, ADP, Prudential, SAP and others.

He is a past chairman of the board and past president of the University of Texas Exes 100,000 member alumni association and has served as the chairman of the Alumni Endowment Investment Committee. He is a lifetime honorary trustee of the Dell Children’s Medical Center. He received his MBA from The University of Texas and his BBA from St. Edwards University both in Austin.

Advisors

Bob Metcalfe, Ph.D.

Dr. Metcalfe was an Internet pioneer at MIT starting in 1970 and in 1973 received his PhD from Harvard for “Packet Communication.” He invented Ethernet in 1973 and founded 3Com Corporation (now part of HP) in 1979. Dr. Metcalfe has received industry recognition such as the National Medal of Technology in 2005 and induction into to the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 2007.

Chair & Professor of Innovation & Murchison Fellow of Free Enterprise in the Cockrell School of Engineering of The University of Texas at Austin

Mike Millard

Mike has led all aspects of research and due diligence at Austin Ventures for five years. He brings exceptional analytical, research, and communications skills acquired as a venture capitalist, investing in promising companies in the mobile media, Internet technology, supply chain logistics, and business services sectors. He has been regarded for the ability to drive processes and motivate diverse cross-functional teams in his extensive career.

Managing Director of Mass Challenge Texas

Stefano Concezzi

Stefano is an experienced business leader responsible for developing relationships within the automotive industry to deliver world-class systems that accelerate customer productivity, innovation and discovery. Skilled at collaborating and connecting customers with industry leaders and NI resources including sales engineers, partners, systems and applications engineers, worldwide marketing teams, customer education professionals and more to ensure customer success.

President & CEO, Eldor Corporation USA

Preston L. James II

Preston is the Co-Founder/Chairman of E3 Angel Network, focused on increasing angel investment participation amongst ethnically diverse and women accredited investors as well as increasing the number of minority led startups that get early stage funding.

In August of 2015, he was appointed to the position of Entrepreneur in Residence (EIR) at the Herb Kelleher Center for Entrepreneurship in the McCombs School of Business atthe University of Texas.

Preston is a 25+ year Enterprise IT technology sales and consulting veteran, including 20 years at Dell, where he led teams responsible for driving $250M+ in enterprise product and services revenue annually.

He’s currently an active mentor, advisor and consultant to tech startups primarily focused on Enterprise Software, IoT, Healthcare, Big Data, Ed Tech and Clean Tech. He is an active mentor at Capital Factory and member of Alliance of Texas Angel Networks.

Entrepreneurs in Residence

Juan Thurman

Southwest Angel Network

Victor Mieres

Southwest Angel Network

Patrick Burns

VP Strategic Partnerships, JP Morgan Chase