Meet Austin’s Best Kept Venture Capitalist

After category creators Christopher Gavigan and Jessica Alba, Co-Founders of The Honest Company (NASDAQ: HNST), reinvented the way CPG businesses were built through vertically integrated consumer owned e-commerce, Gavigan had his eye on bringing cleanliness, transparency, and honesty to the CBD industry. When brainstorming ideas, strategy, and founding team construct, he had one person at the top of his contact list, Adam Zeplain. 

“When I first met Adam, we cancelled our following meetings to spend more time together. At the end of it, we hugged and shared our admiration for one another. Sometimes you connect and form a unique foundation with someone. This was certainly the case for Adam and I,” says Gavigan. Prior to starting Prima, Gavigan describes Zeplain as being someone core to many of the critical decisions he made around the life cycle of his role at The Honest Company. “The secret to some of the best coaches out there is that they help root the person they’re working with to their innermost truths. Adam has done that so many times across the course of my career,” says Gavigan. Known to keep a low-profile, Zeplain is both venture capitalist and close friend to many industry-creating entrepreneurs. 

Zeplain’s journey to become a VC began 12 years ago in Austin, Texas. Born and raised in Houston, Texas, he moved to Austin at the age of 18 to play baseball at St. Edwards University. Unfortunately, an injury redirected his focus away from baseball to finding his life’s purpose. “I knew I wanted to help people solve complex problems, but had no idea how best to do it,” says Zeplain. “My father passed away suddenly when I was 20 years old. It unlocked something in me. I, for the first time, had clarity on how short life really is,” says Zeplain. Unlike many who took a traditional path, Zeplain’s brain was wired to find the maximal amount of value in the shortest amount of time. While running a local marketing firm Zeplain founded, he linked up with an Austin-based VC who convinced him to come and intern in venture. As the only undergraduate intern among Harvard, UPenn, and MIT MBA students, Zeplain was immediately put to the test. When serving as the right-hand to the founding General Partner, Zeplain helped raise their fourth fund. While successful, he realized something was missing if he were to serve founders to the best of his ability. “I realized the venture capitalists that I respected the most had operating experience. In fact, the people I respected the most were builders,” says Zeplain. 

Through his journey, Zeplain came across serial operator, Brett Hurt, founder of the unicorn, Bazaarvoice, Coremetrics (acquired by IBM), and data.world. Zeplain spent his next couple years at Bazaarvoice, working with some of the largest manufacturers and retailers. Hurt has had an opportunity to work with Zeplain both as his employee at Bazaarvoice and now as his investor and advisor in Hurt’s newest company data.world. “When I met Adam years ago, the thing that stood out to me most was how wise he was beyond his years. I immediately gravitated to his ability to connect with anyone, because of how much you could tell he truly cares,” says Hurt. I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve met with investors who have only focused on the numbers. Adam’s approach is incredibly unique in that he really cares most about what kind of human the founder is, focusing most on values such as their integrity.”

Following his time at Bazaarvoice, Zeplain reconnected with close friend and serial entrepreneur Andy Bursten to launch mark vc. “Adam and I hit it off immediately. He was young, persistent, confident and passionate. As I got to know Adam, it was clear to me that he possessed the critical attributes of respect, empathy, loyalty, and integrity. We both believe that at the end of the day, all you have is your name and your word, and I knew early in our relationship that Adam was motivated to be the best of the best,” says Bursten.

On a given day, you can catch Zeplain walking miles around his neighborhood in Austin doing conference calls until 2 am in the morning. A normal late-night 10-mile stroll for him might include jumping between back-to-back calls with new potential founders, adding value to his existing portfolio founders, and calls with Austin’s Mayor Steve Adler. 

The word ‘coach’ and Zeplain’s understanding of an entrepreneur’s interpersonal dynamics stood out most in my conversations with top-tier founders and investors who have worked with Zeplain. In fact, Zeplain’s superpower around how to advise and coach entrepreneurs caught the attention of industry greats such as Jim Breyer who himself recently relocated to Austin. Breyer, who serves as Founder/CEO at Breyer Capital and currently serves on the board of Blackstone, is considered a pioneer in the world of VC through investments in companies such as Facebook, Marvel Comics, Etsy, Legendary Entertainment, and numerous other unicorns 

“What brought me to Austin originally was that I’d been on the Dell board for several years and while brainstorming a lot with Michael Dell, I became convinced Austin is a wonderful place to live, invest, and work with entrepreneurs and institutions such as the University of Texas at Austin and Dell Medical School. One of the things I really love about Austin’s community is the authenticity,” says Breyer. To Breyer, Zeplain embodies many of Austin’s core characteristics of authenticity, sense of inclusion, and a constant desire to help without seeking credit or praise. According to Breyer, while Zeplain is world-class at assessing technologies, markets, and how they intersect, his super-strength is his ability to hone in on the interpersonal dynamics of a founder and how to scale teams. “There is nothing surface level about Adam. What he has is a superpower, which is not only his ability to be authentic but also understand entrepreneurs and help advise as well as coach. He has an ability to drill down to the interpersonal dynamics of founders. This has come across existing investments as well as new investments,” says Breyer.

Similar to Breyer, Lanham Napier who was formerly the CEO of Rackspace (NASDAQ: RXT), helping scale the company from $1.5 million to $1.5 billion in revenue, shares a common view. “Adam brings old-soul wisdom when speaking with founders. What makes him such a special investor is his ability to see the world through a founder’s eyes,” says Lanham Napier. 

Breyer and Napier’s perspectives are consistent with industry creating entrepreneurs such as Dmitri Alperovitch, Co-Founder of Crowdstrike (NASDAQ:CRWD). “Early stage venture investing is perhaps the hardest type of investing. It is not enough to assess the market potential and the idea. It is even more critical to evaluate the founders – what makes them tick, what drives them, their psychological profile and ability to overcome challenges and adversity. I have never met anyone as good as Adam at going deep with potential founders to understand those traits and, as a result, having an amazing record of picking winners across a hugely diverse field of industries. He also has this incredible ability to add immense value along the company journey, and has a reputation of being one of the most valuable partners on the cap table from the moment he joins,” says Alperovitch. 

Zeplain partnered up early with Jeremy Johnson, Founder and CEO of the recently valued $1.65 billion company, Andela, where he serves as an investor and on the advisory council. “Adam understands human potential and helps them realize who they can become. He is able to contribute in extraordinary ways. You know… most investors you meet only work hard to get the deal. With Adam, the value continues to ramp over the lifetime of the company,” says Johnson. 

To date, mark vc has invested in companies such as Crowdstrike (NASDAQ:CRWD), Ring (NASDAQ: AMZN), Reddit, ZenBusiness, Dragos, Anduril, and Bird (NYSE:BRDS), among numerous other unicorns. In terms of what’s next for 33 year-old Zeplain, mark vc as it exists today is just the beginning for him. The entrepreneurial ecosystem evolves as rapidly as the technologies it produces, but venture capital does not. Zeplain is focused on modernizing the venture approach to solve this problem.