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.
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
