Dallas Venture Capital joins $30 million investment round for software firm CoreStack

A Dallas venture capital firm has joined in a $30 million investment round for Bellevue, Wash.-based cloud-governance software company CoreStack.

Dallas Venture Capital previously led the software firm’s earlier $8.5 million round in March 2020. CoreStack’s total funding is now $45 million.

“CoreStack is at the cusp of exponential growth,” said DVC founder and managing director Dayakar Puskoor.

The most recent funding round was led by India-based Avatar Growth Capital.

DVC was impressed with CoreStack’s team, which can draw Seattle-area talent from Microsoft and Amazon, two of the biggest cloud companies in the world, Puskoor said.

CoreStack, founded in 2016, has 100 global enterprise customers and a second office in Chennai, India, according to its website. Last December, the company was anticipating crossing $20 million in revenue over the next year, according to The Economic Times.

The startup’s other venture investors include India-focused venture capital firm Iron Pillar and Palo Alto-based Z5 Capital.

CoreStack has been using DVC’s Advantage program, which helps companies with product and technology strategy, executive mentorship, corporate governance, business development and talent acquisition.

DVC was launched in September 2020 by two Dallas-Fort Worth tech leaders, Puskoor and Abidali Neemuchwala, who previously served as CEO of $8 billion-a-year, India-based tech company Wipro. It has 10 employees split between two offices, one in Irving and one in Hyderabad, India.

The venture firm focuses on early-stage business-to-business companies that specialize in emerging technologies like artificial intelligence and cloud-based software. It looks for companies bringing in at least $1 million in annual revenue and makes investments in the $2 million to $5 million range.

In December 2020, the firm invested $3.5 million into Austin-based PNAR to help it grow its AI and augmented reality company that documents property damage through smartphones.

In April, it made a $1 million investment in Austin-based Rollick Inc., a digital platform and marketing service for sellers of RVs, boats and other recreational vehicles.

DVC has invested in over 20 tech-focused companies and has five successful exits with a combined portfolio enterprise value of nearly $1 billion, according to its website.

It hopes to invest in four to five companies in the next year, Puskoor said.