K/G’s Ryan Gravelle: “We’re a startup; we just sell legal widgets.”

Ryan Gravelle wasn’t always a tech lawyer, but he says he got there as fast as he could. After graduating from Rice University and the University of Virginia School of Law, Gravelle joined Andrews Kurth in 1998 as an associate in Houston doing mostly energy IPOs and M&A.

But after a year and eight months, the Denver native moved to Austin to work at Wilson Sonsini, where he stayed for almost five years, and later went in-house at Dell and then nGenera. In 2010, he launched Kastner Huggins Reddien Gravelle in 2010 with former Wilson Sonsini partner Evan Kastner. Like Austin itself, the firm – since shortened to Kastner Gravelle, or K/G – has experienced phenomenal growth, doubling its lawyer count since 2019 and moving to new offices in October to accommodate even more. In the last year, his firm has handled Sweat Equity-led $26 million investment in Spruce, QuotaPath raising $41 million in funding led by Tribe Capital and Stellar attracting $7 million in capital led by Acrew Capital and Trust Venture.