# John Thornton

> John Thornton is a Series A investor at Austin Ventures backing Software. See 30 investments, check sizes, portfolio and contact details. Updated Aug 2026.

- Type: Angel Investor
- Fund: [Austin Ventures](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/austin-ventures)
- Location: Austin, United States
- Total investments: 30
- Last investment: Jun 2022
- Lead investor: 30%
- Last updated: Aug 2026
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thorntonaustin

John Thornton is a Co-Founder and Partner of Elsewhere Partners. He was a Board of Trustee at Trinity University. He attended Stanford University Graduate School of Business.

## Contacts

5 contacts available for John Thornton: work email, personal email, work phone, personal phone and socials. Sign up free to unlock them: https://app.shizune.co/sign-up/investor-profiles/find-email/john-thornton?utm_source=investor_profile

## Investment focus

### Industry

| Industry | Investments | Share |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Software | 7 | 23% |
| Enterprise Software | 3 | 10% |
| Internet | 2 | 7% |
| Security | 2 | 7% |
| Collaboration | 2 | 7% |

39 industries tracked in total.

### Stage

| Stage | Investments | Share |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Series A | 6 | 20% |
| Series B | 6 | 20% |
| Funding Round | 5 | 17% |
| Series C | 4 | 13% |
| Seed | 3 | 10% |

9 stages tracked in total.

### Country

| Country | Investments | Share |
| --- | --- | --- |
| United States | 10 | 33% |
| Canada | 1 | 3% |
| Israel | 1 | 3% |
| United Kingdom | 1 | 3% |

## Investments

| Company | Description | Amount | Stage | Date | Website |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Semafor | Semafor is the global news media. | $24.6M | Seed | Jun 22, 2022 | https://www.semafor.com |
| Semafor | Semafor is the global news media. | $25M | Pre-Seed | Jun 22, 2022 | https://www.semafor.com |
| Portnox | Portnox is a market leader for network access control and management solutions that scale from small to medium businesses through to large-scale government and enterprise organizations. By spanning the diversity of network technologies and devices in use today, the Portnox platform allows companies to grow, optimize and evolve their infrastructurewhile ensuring security and compliance.The IT landscape of today continues to challenge organizations to accommodate an ever changing landscape of users, devices, locations and environments. As the variety and complexity grows, the challenge to maintain policy and compliance while delivering productivity and efficiency amplifies. | $22M | Series A | Jan 27, 2022 | http://portnox.com/ |
| Sellers Shield | Sellers Shield provides software solutions that protect real estate brokers, agents, and home sellers from lawsuits. Sellers Shield's state-of-the-art protection is designed by industry experts to reduce the likelihood of a lawsuit as well as provide security to sellers if one occurs. | $15M | Series A | Sep 14, 2021 | https://sellersshield.com |
| Tasktop | Tasktop offers a software platform that allows companies to better manage the process of building their software. Tasktop plugs into existing tools and overlays the end-to-end value stream to provide the abstractions, automation, visualizations, and forensics needed to practice value stream management on a daily basis. | $100M | Private Equity | Apr 08, 2021 | http://tasktop.com |
| Avathon | SparkCognition is an artificial intelligence technology startup that builds AI technology solutions for industrial applications. A highly awarded company recognized for cutting-edge technology, SparkCognition develops AI-Powered cyber-physical software for the safety, security, and reliability of IT, OT, and the IoT. The company's technologyis capable of harnessing real-time sensor data and learning from it continuously, allowing for more accurate risk mitigation and prevention policies to intervene and avert disasters.SparkCognition’s cognitive software, DeepArmor, is utilized to prevent and detect malware with a high level of accuracy and efficacy by using advanced machine learning and artificial intelligence. They help customers analyze complex data, empower decision making, and transform human and industrial productivity with award-winning machine learning technology and expert teams focused on defense, IIoT, and finance. | $100M | Series C | Oct 08, 2019 | http://sparkcognition.com |
| Tasktop | Tasktop offers a software platform that allows companies to better manage the process of building their software. Tasktop plugs into existing tools and overlays the end-to-end value stream to provide the abstractions, automation, visualizations, and forensics needed to practice value stream management on a daily basis. | $11M | Series B | Apr 13, 2017 | http://tasktop.com |
| Onit | Onit deploys Onit Apps to simplify business process automation and improve business productivity across all departments and industries. The Onit App Builder allows business users to drive efficiency and productivity by combining business process management, project management, and information management into one easy to use the tool so the usercan create their own Onit Apps without having to rely on IT for support. Businesses have processes for everything -- whether it’s hiring a vendor or law firm, terminating an employee, submitting a contract for review, requesting a trademark request, obtaining an NDA, etc. Most of these processes are manual, paper-intensive, and cumbersome. With Onit Apps, processes are automated in a few clicks, responsible parties are notified immediately, and data collection is centralized. Onit doesn’t require any software to download or resources from IT. | $8.3M |  | Oct 27, 2016 | http://onit.com |
| WhereBy.Us | WhereBy.Us creates media and technology products that help people connect and engage in their cities. We're building a toolkit for local engagement that reimagines local media for a generation of globally minded, highly mobile curious locals.Today, we have brands running on our platform in five cities around the US: Miami(www.thenewtropic.com) Orlando (www.pulp.town) Pittsburgh (www.theincline.com) Portland (www.bridgeliner.com) Seattle (www.theevergrey.com) | $2M | Seed | Jun 01, 2016 | https://www.whereby.us |
| Verb | Verb is the leadership development platform that prepares your people to adapt to the challenges of today’s rapidly changing workplace. Engaging and relevant topics help managers develop the leadership capabilities needed most in the modern workplace, enabling them to support the growth of everyone they lead. Microlearning activities promptlearners to practice skills in a safe space, take action in the real world, and reflect on their growth—leading to real skill development and behavior change. | $2.3M | Seed | Jun 16, 2015 | http://www.goverb.com |

10 of 30 investments shown.

## Co-investors
- [Trellis Partners](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/trellis-partners) — VC Fund, 5 deals together
- [ABS Ventures](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/abs-ventures) — VC Fund, 4 deals together
- [Shasta Ventures](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/shasta-ventures) — VC Fund, 3 deals together
- [Yaletown Partners](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/yaletown-venture-partners) — VC Fund, 3 deals together
- [Cardinal Venture Capital](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/cardinal-venture-capital) — VC Fund, 2 deals together
- [Elsewhere Partners](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/elsewhere-partners) — VC Fund, 2 deals together

## About Austin Ventures

VC Fund · Austin, United States

Austin Ventures is a venture capital and private equity company that specializes in partnering with talented executives and entrepreneurs to build companies. It was founded in 1984 and headquartered in Austin, Texas.

5 contacts available at Austin Ventures.

| Name | Title | Profile |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Dave Alter | Senior Associate | https://shizune.co/investors/profile/dave-alter |
| Jim Kozlowski | Venture Partner | https://shizune.co/investors/profile/jim-kozlowski-2 |
| Joe Aragona | Founder & General Partner | https://shizune.co/investors/profile/joe-aragona |
| Chris Pacitti | General Partner | https://shizune.co/investors/profile/chris-pacitti |
| Devon T Rogers | Venture Partner | https://shizune.co/investors/profile/traveon-rogers |

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## FAQ

### What does John Thornton invest in?

John Thornton invests primarily in Software, Enterprise Software and Internet startups, most often at Series A and Series B stage. Most of the 30 investments tracked by Shizune back companies in United States. The Investment Focus section breaks down every industry, stage and country in the portfolio.

### How do I contact John Thornton?

Public channels for John Thornton include LinkedIn. For a verified work email and phone number, create a free Shizune account — contact data is searched across 20+ sources and validated before delivery, so your outreach lands in the right inbox.

### When did John Thornton last invest?

The most recent investment recorded for John Thornton closed in Jun 2022. Shizune tracks 30 investments in total for this profile, including round sizes, stages and portfolio companies, all sourced from confirmed public funding rounds and refreshed monthly.

### Is Shizune's investor data accurate?

Yes — every stat on this profile is calculated from confirmed public funding rounds monitored across hundreds of sources since 2020. This profile was last refreshed in Aug 2026 and is updated monthly. Spotted something off? Use the “Suggest an edit” link near the top of the page.

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