Mason Rathe, MBA ’18, joined LiveOak Venture Partners as a senior associate where he will focus on executing new investments and supporting the firm’s growing portfolio. LiveOak Venture Partners is an early-stage venture capital firm based in Austin, Texas.

Mason Rathe interned at LiveOak from the beginning of 2018 while completing his MBA at the McCombs School of Business at the University of Texas. Prior to business school, Mason was in the Technology and Life Sciences division of Comerica Bank, where he underwrote over $350M in capital commitments to early stage companies. Prior to Comerica, Mason led business development for US Capital Partners. During his MBA, Mason began a weekly newsletter that chronicled key developments in Austin’s startup environment and grew virally to thousands of subscribers.

“Mason has already shown terrific value add as an intern at the firm and demonstrated strong leadership in nurturing the local startup environment with his newsletter. These team expansions underscore our intense focus on the Texas venture opportunity and the support of local entrepreneurs with resources to scale their business and reach their full potential,” added Venu Shamapant, founding partner at LiveOak Venture Partners. Read more