Mason Rathe

Mason Rathe is an Austin-based investor and finance operator who built his early-stage investing track record at LiveOak Venture Partners, a Texas-focused early-stage venture firm. He joined LiveOak at the beginning of 2018 as an intern while completing his MBA at the McCombs School of Business at the University of Texas at Austin (graduating with honors in May 2018, with a focus on private equity and real-estate finance), and subsequently came on full-time as a Senior Associate. During his time at LiveOak, the firm was investing out of funds backing Texas-based technology companies (including a ~$105M fund and later a ~$210M fund).

Before venture capital, Rathe worked in the Technology and Life Sciences division of Comerica Bank, where he managed a portfolio of early-stage companies and underwrote more than $350M in capital commitments. Earlier in his career he led business development for US Capital Partners. This banking and capital-markets grounding shaped a finance-first approach that he later carried into operating roles.

While in business school, Rathe launched a weekly newsletter chronicling developments in Austin's startup ecosystem, which grew to thousands of subscribers (published on Substack as "Austin Highlights"). He expanded this into the Texas Deal Highlights franchise — covering venture and startup activity across Austin, Houston, and Dallas — which was ultimately acquired by Texas CEO Magazine, where his deal-report articles continued to be published.

In March 2021, Rathe left LiveOak to join portfolio-adjacent startup SchooLinks (a college- and career-readiness SaaS platform) as VP of Finance & Operations and later CFO, joining in connection with the company's $8.3M Series A round. He held that CFO role through July 2025, after which he became VP of Finance at MontyCloud. He continues to invest individually as an angel.

• Invests at the seed and early stage, consistent with his LiveOak background and his current angel activity.
• Strong orientation toward Texas-built technology companies — his newsletters and deal reports are explicitly organized around the Austin, Houston, and Dallas startup ecosystems.
• Comfort with B2B software, fintech, and tech-enabled services, reflecting both the LiveOak portfolio he worked on and his banking/finance background.
• Brings a finance-operator lens (capital markets underwriting at Comerica, CFO experience at SchooLinks/MontyCloud) — likely to scrutinize unit economics, capital efficiency, and the path to durable revenue.
• Deeply networked into the Texas ecosystem through years of ecosystem-mapping journalism, which informs which deals and founders he tracks.