Joshua Baer, a leader in the tech space, died Tuesday night in a private plane crash in Laredo. When people think of the Austin tech boom, Joshua Baer comes to mind. Baer, 50, was a giant in the Austin tech scene best known for founding Capital Factory, one of the city’s most notable and successful venture capital firms, in 2009. The firm has been the most active early-stage investor in Texas since 2010, according to Pitchbook data. It has helped fund companies like Firefly Aerospace, Intuitive Machines, Aalo Atomics, Colossal Biosciences and Creative 3D Technologies. It helped companies like defense tech firm Saronic Technologies and Neuralink competitor Paradromics launch.
"Nobody has built a company in the last 20 years without crossing paths with Joshua Baer," Austin Tech Council CEO Thom Singer said.
"Through the years, he has always supported my journey, and eventually Apptronik's journey, and I couldn't be more grateful for his guidance and mentorship," Cardenas said in a statement. "He poured his heart and soul into creating a place for entrepreneurs to build the future, and his work and legacy is going to live on forever."
Baer lived in Austin with his wife, Amy, and their three children.
Forging a path in the startup sphere
Baer grew up in Nashua, N.H., and started his first company, an email marketing firm called SKYLIST, from his dorm room at Carnegie Mellon University in 1996. SKYLIST was later acquired by New York Internet marketing firm Datran Media for about $10 million in 2006. He moved to Austin in 1999, when he was recruited to join Trilogy Inc. as a software developer. At Trilogy, he co-founded e-commerce software maker IveBeenGood.com, which was sold to Network Commerce for $20 million in 2000.
Capital Factory has grown to about a hundred employees and stretched to offices across the state. In 2022, it installed its Center for Defense Innovation program in a 5,000-square-foot office at the Tech Port Center + Arena in San Antonio to further its mission to build partnerships between the private sector and the Defense Department.
"His passion, his drive was that other people could have the advantages of a career and a life in technology that he was able to have, and he wanted everyone to know it," Singer said. "He wasn’t the type who said, 'Let’s go make money' and then disappear. He genuinely cared and it was evident."
Baer was inducted into the Austin Tech Hall of Fame last year.
Family philanthropy and giving
He and his wife also donated and volunteered with the Austin Anti-Defamation League, a local chapter of the advocacy organization that seeks to fight antisemitism and hate. The couple established their own foundation, the Baer Family Foundation, to support disadvantaged children and inclusive entrepreneurship.