Trousdale Ventures Team

With backgrounds in private equity, venture capital, business strategy, and entrepreneurship, the Trousdale Ventures team brings their unique perspectives to building successful growth and startup companies. The founders and partners, based in Los Angeles and Austin, are focused on providing revenue growth, risk management, and strategic advisory support for portfolio companies.

Founder & CEO

Phillip Sarofim

Phillip Sarofim is Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Trousdale Ventures, LLC. A noted businessman, entrepreneur, philanthropist, patron of the arts and historic automobile enthusiast, Sarofim has built a portfolio that encompasses a wide array of companies at the leading-edge of technology, medicine, clean energy, media and consumer products.

Sarofim established Trousdale Ventures with an extensive background in corporate investment, business development and mergers & acquisitions, and takes an active role in helping grow portfolio companies as an Advisory Board or Board of Directors member.

Sarofim serves as a member of the Board of Directors for several Trousdale Ventures portfolio companies, including Yellowbird Foods, OnPoint, Passport Foods and Continuum Global Solutions. At the same time, Sarofim is a member of the Advisory Boards for Trousdale Venture companies EQTainment, Good Shepherd Entertainment and Ostendo, and serves on the Advisory Boards of Unicorn Ventures, a venture capital firm focused on providing seed funding to early-to-mid stage companies and Skyview Capital, LLC, a global independent investment firm which ranks among Trousdale’s key strategic investment partners.

A stage 2 Hodgkin lymphoma survivor, Sarofim joined with the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA), to launch the Phillip Sarofim Scholarship Endowment, established to award undergraduate scholarships with a preference for students battling or in remission from cancer. He is also a donor to Cedars-Sinai Cancer, a world-class facility committed to finding breakthroughs in cancer research and providing personalized care to individuals with cancer. In addition, Sarofim has provided generous financial support to such leading children’s organizations as the Make-A-Wish Foundation and Operation Smile. Underscoring his commitment to community involvement, Sarofim is a founding member of the Petersen Museum and donates his time as a member of the board for the Houston Police Foundation, Houston’s Alley Theater and Emancipation Park.

Phillip attended Rice University.

Managing Director of Trousdale Venture Partners

Brian Grigsby

Mr. Grigsby is an experienced entrepreneur, business leader and venture capital investor with more than 30 years of technology and business experience. Mr. Grigsby has been actively involved in early stage finance and business development for the past 20 years.

Mr. Grigsby currently holds the CEO/CFO position in Netherlands based Good Shepherd Entertainment, a venture backed full service video game publishing & finance company. In addition, Mr. Grigsby is the Managing Partner with Corsa Ventures an Austin Texas based early stage Venture Capital Firm founded by Mr. Grigsby in 2012.

In 2009 Mr. Grigsby founded Raven Venture Partners; an early stage venture capital Pledge Fund focused on equity financing of Digital Entertainment, Software, & E-commerce businesses. In 2008 Mr. Grigsby founded GHI Media to develop a small publishing and production services label targeting niche video game title opportunities in Europe, Eastern Europe and US markets. GHI Media currently operates under the label “Devolver Digital” and is one of the largest Independent Video Game Publishers in the world. In 2006, Mr. Grigsby led the formation and funding of Gamecock Media, a full service global publisher of video games, where he served as a board advisor and management consultant prior to sale of the company in 2008. In 2003, Mr. Grigsby founded Venio Capital Partners, an early stage Venture Capital Pledge Fund. As a managing partner, Mr. Grigsby developed Venio’s early stage funding model serving the gap between angel and traditional venture capital.

For the past 15 years, Mr. Grigsby has been actively involved in management consulting, board advisement and M&A activities associated with early and mid stage company development. Since 2001, Mr. Grigsby was a founder or investor in venture backed acquisition exits to Fortune 100 companies such as IBM, Motorola, Applied Materials, Sales Force, HEB & (2) IPOs. Currently Mr. Grigsby is an active investor in more than 20 companies and board member or adviser to Revival Cycles, Yellow Bird Sauce, Key Concierge, Hive9, and Open Lending. In addition to investment and early stage company formation experience, Mr. Grigsby has an extensive technology, operations and business development background. In 1999 Mr. Grigsby co-founded Global Knowledge Services (GKS), a semiconductor Software as a Service business which was later acquired by Applied Materials in 2001. Post acquisition, Mr. Grigsby was principally responsible for the integration, positioning, and selling of GKS products and services in the US, Asia and Southern European territories.

Prior to GKS, Mr. Grigsby spent 10 years in the Visual & Telecommunications Industries holding various Senior Management positions in Engineering and Product Development. During his tenure at VTEL Corporation, Mr. Grigsby was responsibility for a $50M multi-site development organization, leading research and development of the company’s telecommunications product lines.

Prior to working in the telecommunications industry, Mr. Grigsby worked at NASA’s Johnson Space Center where he participated in the shuttle re-launch programs after the Challenger accident. During this period, Mr. Grigsby held an Engineering position with Lockheed Corp providing technical support to NASA’s crew familiarization, training, and flight hardware test programs.

Prior to NASA, Mr. Grigsby spent 5 years working in the professional and consumer audio industries working as a technician while pursuing Engineering and Physics undergraduate studies.

Mr. Grigsby received his bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering & Physics from the University of Oklahoma in 1989. Post Lockheed/NASA, Mr. Grigsby undertook graduate studies at the University of Oklahoma completing a Master’s of Science degree in Optical Electronics & Physics in 1992.

Mr. Grigsby was raised in Texas and Oklahoma where he was one of seven children. Mr. Grigsby has been a resident of Austin, Texas since completing graduate studies in 1992. As a father of three (3) children, Mr. Grigsby enjoys the outdoors, recreational tennis, boating and occasional paddle boarding on Ladybird Lake. Mr. Grigsby is an avid motor sports fan and currently participates as a driver in the Sports Car Club of America’s regional, national, professional Club Racing Series.

Founder & CEO

Phillip Sarofim

Phillip Sarofim is a philanthropist as well as founder and CEO of Trousdale Ventures. He brings an extensive career in financing and brand building, and takes an active role in the growth and development of portfolio companies. Mr. Sarofim sits on a number of advisory boards, including that of Skyview Capital, LLC, one of Trousdale Ventures’ strategic investment partners. Prior to establishing Trousdale Ventures, Mr. Sarofim served as general partner for a prominent Austin-based venture capital organization where he played a pivotal role in originating, analyzing, and executing an array of investments. A stage II Hodgkin lymphoma survivor, Mr. Sarofim is also dedicated to supporting cancer research through a number of distinguished medical facilities, including Cedars Sinai Medical Center and the American Cancer Society.

Partner

Patrick O’Reilly

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A recognized technology strategist and serial entrepreneur, Patrick O’Reilly serves as founder-CEO and chairman of the board for Get Cloud Native, a Trousdale Ventures portfolio company that specializes in migrating large enterprise clients to cloud platforms. Noted for his efforts in helping establish the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF), Mr. O’Reilly previously served in the Office of CTO Cloud Computing for Cisco following senior-level technology posts with Mesosphere, Wikimedia Foundation, OmniTi, Schematic, and Media Revolution.

Partner

Dave Lin

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Dave Lin has a distinguished career in entrepreneurship, operations, finance, and investing in venture-backed companies. He has served as managing partner of Lin Ventures, where he represented clients and investments such as Ad Hoc Labs, eSalon, PPG Industries, and Slack. Prior to Lin Ventures, he held operational CFO, senior management, and lead investor positions with companies including Maker Studios, OfferBuys.com, Upfront Ventures (formerly GRP Partners), PriceGrabber, Experian, Montgomery & Co., and UBS. Mr. Lin graduated from UCLA and received his MBA from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.

Partner

Jonathan Hung

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Jonathan Hung has an extensive background in operations management, finance, business strategy and development, entrepreneurship, and data analysis. As president of United Overseas Textile Corporation, Mr. Hung played a pivotal role in establishing the global business as a leader in apparel design and manufacturing. While in the role, he partnered with retailers such as Amazon, Burlington, and Costco. Mr. Hung is also the co-founder and chief operating officer of Legacy Pioneers, a technology company dedicated to building the next generation of leaders by providing families with education, training, and mentoring. Mr. Hung holds degrees from the University of Southern California, London School of Economics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.