Shravan Parsi
Founder and CEO, American Ventures
Austin United States (Texas)
Professional Status
Employed
Available
About Me
Shravan Parsi is the founder and CEO of American Ventures, an Austin-based firm that invests in and develops multifamily, mixed-use, commercial, and hospitality real estate along the Austin-San Antonio corridor.
He has invested in Texas real estate since 2003. Alongside private equity groups, family offices, and accredited investors, he acquired 22 apartment complexes totaling roughly 4,400 units, then took the value-add portfolio full cycle across two market peaks, with every investor paid back.
Parsi trained as a pharmaceutical scientist, and he underwrites the way he once ran experiments: a written protocol, the same disqualifying criteria on every deal, and stress tests built to kill a deal before capital is committed. He laid out the method in The Science of the Deal, published by Forbes Books in 2019.
Today the firm's work is mostly development. About $600 million in planned projects includes a Marriott Tribute hotel and condominium site on Austin's South Congress Avenue, a mixed-use district in San Marcos, and more than 60 acres in Elgin. American Ventures has 252 high-net-worth investor relationships, about one third of them repeat investors.
He has invested in Texas real estate since 2003. Alongside private equity groups, family offices, and accredited investors, he acquired 22 apartment complexes totaling roughly 4,400 units, then took the value-add portfolio full cycle across two market peaks, with every investor paid back.
Parsi trained as a pharmaceutical scientist, and he underwrites the way he once ran experiments: a written protocol, the same disqualifying criteria on every deal, and stress tests built to kill a deal before capital is committed. He laid out the method in The Science of the Deal, published by Forbes Books in 2019.
Today the firm's work is mostly development. About $600 million in planned projects includes a Marriott Tribute hotel and condominium site on Austin's South Congress Avenue, a mixed-use district in San Marcos, and more than 60 acres in Elgin. American Ventures has 252 high-net-worth investor relationships, about one third of them repeat investors.
Founder and CEO
American Ventures
Since 2018
Austin
United States - Texas
- Raises equity from 252 high-net-worth investor relationships, about one third of them repeat investors, and co-invests alongside institutional partners including Goldman Sachs and Carlyle
- Oversaw the exit of more than 3,500 units as general partner between 2018 and 2022 at a weighted average IRR of 31.6 percent, selling into two market peaks with every investor paid back
- Delivered The Draper, a 155-unit ground-up community in Garland, on a 40-year HUD loan fixed at 2.96 percent that he personally guaranteed, wiring his own funds for the rate lock before raising investor capital; the property reached 90 percent occupancy in its first year
- Leads a development pipeline of about $600 million: a South Congress Avenue site in Austin planned as a Marriott Tribute hotel with condominiums, more than 100 acres in San Marcos within the planned East Village city center, and more than 60 acres along US-290 in Elgin planned for mixed-use development
- Runs a written underwriting protocol that screens roughly fifty deals to close one or two, targets a projected 20 percent IRR over a three-to-five-year hold, and stress tests every model against higher rates, exit cap expansion, rent shortfalls, and cost overruns
General Partner and Co-Investor
Multifamily Acquisitions
2013
to 2018
- Acquired 22 apartment complexes totaling roughly 4,400 units, co-investing with private equity groups, family offices, and accredited investors
- Focused on B and C workforce housing in B locations in the path of growth, bought below replacement cost
- Co-owner of NAPA Ventures, established in 2013
- Walked away from a planned 550-unit Corpus Christi acquisition ten days before closing after Hurricane Harvey damaged the larger property, and extended the hold on 400 units in Lake Jackson to restabilize before sale
Founder
SA Dream Homes
2002
to 2012
- Bought his first Texas investment property in 2003 and built a portfolio of more than 100 single-family homes on buy-fix-sell and buy-fix-hold plans
- Homes acquired and sold between 2006 and 2012 produced a weighted average ROI of 59 percent
- Built a lending model with a credit-repair attorney that made homeownership possible for buyers conventional lenders turned down
- Invested in land in east and north Austin, including five acres next to the Formula 1 track ahead of the inaugural U.S. Grand Prix, covered by the Austin American-Statesman
- Multifamily and commercial acquisitions
- Written underwriting protocols and stress testing
- Texas submarket, supply, and absorption analysis
- Replacement cost versus acquisition pricing
- Disposition timing and full-cycle exits
- Ground-up multifamily development
- Mixed-use and master-planned districts
- Hospitality development and hotel brand selection
- Land assembly and entitlements
- Equity raising from high-net-worth investors, family offices, and private equity
- Institutional co-investment and joint ventures
- HUD and long-term fixed-rate financing
- Deal structuring and operating agreements
- Investor reporting
- Value-add repositioning
- Workforce housing operations
- Hold-period business plan revisions
- Documentation and repeatable process, carried over from pharmaceutical R&D
- Pratham USA, Austin chapter board: Every Child in School and Learning Well
- Merit-based scholarships and access to education
- Trustee, Austin Hindu Temple and Cedar Park Temple
- YPO Austin
- Past member, Tiger 21 and Entrepreneurs' Organization
- American history
- Business biography, including What It Takes by Stephen Schwarzman
- Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari
- Documentaries
- Author, The Science of the Deal (Forbes Books), and Forbes contributor
- Conference and family office forum speaker
- The Austin-San Antonio megaregion
- College sports realignment and campus real estate
- Board member, Pratham USA, Austin chapter
- Trustee, Austin Hindu Temple and Cedar Park Temple
- Member, YPO Austin
- Past member, Tiger 21 and Entrepreneurs' Organization
Certifications
