If you pay any attention to the business world, then you are probably at least vaguely familiar with Nvidia, a San Francisco Bay Area technology outfit that earlier this summer harnessed the wave of AI popularity to become the most valuable company in the world, elbowing past Apple, Microsoft, and Google’s parent organization, Alphabet.
Over the past few years, as Nvidia and its CEO, Jensen Huang, have commanded headline after international headline, another group closer to us here has been pushing its own star upward following a trajectory originally fueled by Chattanooga venture capital group Brickyard and eventually, as of a few weeks ago, resulted in being acquired by Huang’s global behemoth.
Had you not been familiar with Brev.dev more than a few weeks ago, you’re not alone, at least across the general Chattanooga business community. The software startup, led by Nader Khalil and co-founder Alec Fong, is very popular among the developer crowd, but when they made their Chattanooga appearance back in 2021, they represented one of the very first Brickyard investments. So early was their Chattanooga stint, the current Brickyard headquarters was still under construction.
“When we flew the Brev team here to pitch us, they immediately grasped the point of Brickyard, which is to remove all distractions in order to go as fast as possible,” says Cam Doody, co-founder and general partner at Brickyard. “Having written them their first major check, and reinvesting twice more, I’m proud that we got to play such an early role in their success.”
From its inception, Brickyard has positioned itself as a hyper-focused alternative to its peers in venture capital. Being located in a thriving mid-sized city and not a distracting tech metropolis really simplifies the job of getting a company to its product/market fit. Khalil and company appreciated this stance from their first visit to Chattanooga.
As he tells it in a near-viral LinkedIn post, “Brickyard was the only investor that we met in person. They flew us out to Chattanooga, Tennessee, from San Francisco just to meet us before deciding if they wanted to invest. I really appreciate them believing in us so early when it was (easy) for others not to.”
“We’re building a community of founders who are dead serious about execution and share a building philosophy around focus and work ethic,” says Matt Patterson, co-founder and general partner at Brickyard. “There is a grit to Chattanooga that we believe is being missed in the venture space. Brev is the first in our portfolio to demonstrate our thesis in action, and we believe we will have many more to come.”
After completing their residency in Chattanooga, the Brev crew returned to the West Coast as its courtship phase intensified with eventual partners, culminating in last month’s acquisition by Nvidia.
As he wrapped up his LinkedIn video, Khalil made sure to note that Brickyard “will be the first people that I call when we want to start the next thing.”
That’s good to hear.
Come on back, Nader. Chattanooga will definitely pick up the phone.
