Atlanta’s Justin Ernest Is Building Sabertooth Capital For A New Era Of DeepTech Investing
Sabertooth Capital is an Atlanta-based investment firm founded by Justin Ernest that gives institutional investors and family offices access to individual investment opportunities in high-growth, later-stage technology companies. The firm has already deployed close to $500 million into companies across AI, defense, robotics, quantum, compute, space, and other DeepTech sectors.
ATLANTA, June 11 (Hypepotamus) - Atlanta-based investor Justin Ernest is taking a “contrarian philosophy around fundraising” with his new role as Founder and Managing Partner at Sabertooth Capital.
The firm, officially announced by TechCrunch this week, focuses on investing in “enduring technology companies.” But instead of spending the last year raising a fund as a traditional fund manager would, Ernest has spent time “raising and deploying capital on an independent basis into businesses that I know well and think will be the next trillion dollar companies.”
This means that Ernest secures allocations of stock in high-profile, later-stage companies. He then offers these individual deals to a group of smaller institutional investors, as explained in TechCrunch. Sabertooth Capital holds shares on behalf of participating investors.
Having deployed nearly $500 million into companies, Ernest said the firm can “move swiftly when new opportunities arise given the trusted LP base we've built.”
Sabertooth writes checks in the range of $10 million to $275 million, according to the TechCrunch article.
Why Sabertooth Capital Is Taking A Different Approach To Fundraising
This is about keeping up with the rapid rate of change in the tech industry.
“The past year has been the most unique time in venture since I entered the industry a decade ago, and maybe the most unique time in history. The pace of technological change across frontier technologies is unprecedented. The asset class has always been driven by power laws, but we've seen that dynamic accelerate even further since the beginning of last year. Significant value is accruing in a smaller number of generational companies, limited partners want greater optionality and direct co-invest opportunities, and the world's most valuable institutions are putting hundreds of billions of dollars into the AI infrastructure buildout. This didn't seem like the right time to sit on the capital deployment sidelines.”
LPs in the fund are institutional investors (venture funds, hedge funds, banks, and sovereign wealth groups) and family offices. A smaller co-invest allocation group in each deal is friends and family, something that Ernest said was important to “build the firm alongside those who supported and believed in Sabertooth from the beginning.”
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Ernest spent the last six years at Playground Global, a Palo Alto, California-based firm. He said that experience helped him hone in on the opportunities in “DeepTech.”
“I inherently believe that we are living through a generational technological shift. Breakthroughs in what we define as deep technologies -- compute, quantum systems, engineered biology, robotics, new energy, and defense -- are scaling and converging in a way that makes them incredibly fascinating from an investment perspective. Advancements in one of these domains are now accelerating progress in others, which creates the conditions for entirely new industries to emerge. At the same time, technological sovereignty has re-emerged as a global priority. Governments are recognizing that leadership in these technologies will shape economic strength, security, and resilience for decades to come. As we approach our 250th birthday in the US, there's no better investment than backing the founders and companies that will define the next chapter of American exceptionalism.”
Why Sabertooth Capital Is Focused On DeepTech
Ernest said the name Sabertooth pays homage to the “passionate, relentless, and agile” predator that survived for 2.5 million years on Earth.
“These traits resonate with how I think about venture investing. Sabertooth invests quietly but decisively, and is relentless in how it supports entrepreneurs. There’s also some symbolism in the name. Venture as an asset class has gone through several cycles of exuberance and contraction, and I think we’re entering the dawn of a new era for the industry. In many ways, it feels like venture is being rebuilt for a different technological age. The sabertooth itself went extinct 10,000 years ago, yet the image remains iconic and enduring. I like the idea of that spirit being reborn -- a reminder that adaptability and agility matter now more than ever,” he added.
Ernest said he is looking to invest in “tenacious technical founders” that have a “unique, lived insight into the problem they’re solving, and they’re relentless in pushing the boundary.”
To date, Sabertooth Capital’s portfolio includes Anduril, Anthropic, Canva, Base, Databricks, Groq, Hermeus, Neuralink, PsiQuantum, SpaceX, Strand Therapeutics, and xAI.
What Sabertooth Capital Means For Atlanta’s Tech Ecosystem
Ernest told Hypepotamus he is “proud” to be building Sabertooth in Atlanta.
“Atlanta’s tech ecosystem feels like it’s on the precipice of something significant. The region has all the ingredients: world-class universities, deep pools of technical talent, and one of the highest concentrations of Fortune 500 companies in the nation. The local venture ecosystem is underappreciated – particularly at the early stage where there are a myriad of great seed funds in town. The city has also produced a number of exceptional founders whose companies (like one of our investments, Hermeus) are increasingly attracting attention and capital by top investors in the industry.”
He pointed out that Atlanta could “become a center of gravity” for DeepTech sectors like industrial automation, space & defense, and compute.
“At the risk of stating a truism, I think the real competitive advantage in Atlanta is its culture. Having lived in many of the country's top innovation hubs – Boston, New York, San Francisco – I've found the culture here to be incredibly collaborative. Founders, investors, and industry executives genuinely want to help each other succeed, and annual events like Venture Atlanta exemplify that spirit. I believe it's still the early innings for our community as a national tech force.”
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