Hello, friend of Rock Yard!

Welcome to the first edition of Rock Yard Ventures’ new monthly newsletter, The Yard Call! If you are receiving this, it means you attended one of our events sometime within the last year - and hopefully enjoyed it!

With the firm moving to Austin, we thought it was the perfect time to launch this. It’s a place to share our thoughts, updates, and what we’re working on.

We’ll do our best to avoid spamming you, but we won’t take it personally if you unsubscribe. (We have all done it!)

Our goal is for it to be a collaborative resource for communicating with you and our wider network. We want to share interesting information and even share our late-stage syndicate deals—more on this below!

And most importantly, if you’re building something great, we want to hear from you.

High-level of this month’s news:

• Welcome to the team: We’re pumped to welcome two new people to our team!

• In the news: 

  • Daniel appeared on the Jon Schultz Podcast

  • Rock Yard was featured by the Venture Capital Journal

• Firm Updates: We moved to Austin!

• What we’re doing outside the office: Our NYC Associate Ryan ran fifty miles (on purpose!) and won third place!

• Events: We’re hosting a ton of events this summer across the US. The next is in Austin on July 18th - invite below!

• Rock Yard’s co-invest syndicate: More and more we have interesting late-stage opportunities coming across our plate from our partners and LPs. We may opportunistically offer them to our broader network so we built an Angelist syndicate page to start gathering folks who may be interested.

Our Team’s Growing!

Please join us in welcoming our two newest team members Lavina Kalwani and Klicia Oliveira Wilson!

Lavina will be joining us for the summer as our first MBA associate. She is currently pursuing her MBA at Rice University and brings a ton of enthusiasm and operational experience to our team. She will be joining us in Austin for summer, so shoot her a message if you’re building something cool or looking to grow your network.

Klicia will be joining us on a part-time basis as a Venture Fellow. She brings a wealth of knowledge in executive coaching and professional development, and deep technical expertise from her time as a geophysicist in the O&G sector.

You can reach them on LinkedIn or at [email protected] and [email protected].

Podcast Feature - Daniel and the “Myth of Overnight Success”

Daniel had the opportunity to join Jonathan Schultz on his podcast to discuss the 'Myth of Overnight Success.'

Daniel shared his belief and goal of being a tortoise in a world full of hares. He emphasized that his current position is insignificant because this is not the finish line. He is still in the game, committed to outlasting others, and that endurance is the key to his success.

If you have a few moments, give it a listen. You can find it on Apple Podcasts, YouTube, or at the original LinkedIn post.

In the Press: Venture Capital Journal Feature

In early April Daniel’s story was picked up by Venture Capital Journal. The piece titled, “From Prison to Pre-Seed: Daniel Dart and Rock Yard Ventures” covers Daniel’s life story and our firm-building story. (Sorry about the paywall. )

Goodbye Boston, Hello Austin

After two years in Beantown, Daniel - and Rock Yard - has made the move. 30 hours later and 20 degrees warmer, he arrived in the firm’s new home - Austin, Texas. We’re pumped for the next chapter of the journey and can’t wait to see what Austin has to offer.

We’re still getting the lay of the land so if you’re building something cool, want to grab a coffee, or know where we can find the city’s best tacos, let’s talk!

50 Miles Later…

/

Rock Yard’s very own associate, Ryan Mitchell, recently completed the infamous Cayuga Trails 50, finishing third and bringing home bottles of Ithaca’s best cider and maple syrup.

That shit hurt.

Events

We have a ton of things coming in the next few weeks and months in Austin, Chicago, New York, and San Francisco. Sign up below, and see you there!

• July 18th, Austin, TX - Join us for our first ‘It’s Hot as Hell Summer Hang.’ Come hang and let’s talk tech, startups, VC, or the crazy state of the world!

  • Time: 8:00-9:30

  • Place: Cosmic Pickle - 121 Pickle Rd, Austin, TX 78704

  • Sign up link HERE.

Rock Yard co-invest syndicate

Recently, we’ve seen some great late-stage opportunities. Although they may not be a perfect fit for the core Rock Yard seed fund, we think they are awesome and would love to share them with our broader community rather than solely with our LP base. So, in some special cases, we may offer them out via our own syndicate—most likely through Angelist. We have created a syndicate there for this reason. (You can sign up for our Angelist syndicate HERE). If you are interested, add us.

That’s it for now! ‘til next time.

- Rock Yard