Team

Three people. Three cities. One corridor.

Render is run by three operator-investors based across the corridor we invest in. We take active board seats, we travel to our portfolio companies, and we believe the best founders deserve the best partners.

Southern Indiana, Louisville, KY and Texas

Patrick Henshaw

Managing Director

Patrick is the VC-rancher-tech-wrangler hybrid they warned the spreadsheets about. One foot in a bass-stocked Burton, Texas pond, the other in a boardroom across the Midwest and South, equal parts deal-closer and deer-feeder.

A West Point grad and Army Ranger, Patrick founded and exited three tech companies before turning to investing. He helped Cintrifuse fund-of-funds scale from $50M to $150M as their VP of Growth, learning the LP side of the table, then founded Render Capital in 2022 to back Middle America founders the coastal funds were missing, pre-seed and seed companies across the heartland and commerce corridor.

Whether he's closing venture rounds, chasing IRR benchmarks, hacking together solar fans for shipping containers, or picking the perfect hook for bass, Patrick moves seamlessly between the high-stakes world of venture capital and the hands-on grit of rural life. He's run startups, funds, and power washers. He has a Tesla in the driveway, a CPAP by the bed, and a crossbow by the door. Patrick reads term sheets like others read weather reports and cares about trust, community, and legacy as much as MOIC and markup.

If "Frontier Capitalist" were a job title, he'd trademark it.

patrick@render.capital LinkedIn →

Dallas, TX

Triet Nguyen

Principal

Triet joined Render as Senior Associate in 2023 and was promoted to Principal in 2024. He leads deals across the corridor with a focus on founders building strange but essential infrastructure in overlooked markets. Companies he covers include Xena Intelligence, Spontivly, SupportPay, Genetica, Brond Health, Shappi, Fair Warranty, Dappier, Pluto Pets, and Detect Auto.

Before Render, Triet worked at Capital Factory (Texas's flagship technology accelerator) and at MicroVentures, an early-stage venture firm with $500M in assets under management. He mentors at VC University (a joint program of the National Venture Capital Association, Venture Forward, and Berkeley Law Executive Education) and is a founding member of Partner Track, a peer community for emerging-manager principals and associates.

Triet is based in Dallas. BS Marketing from the University of Texas at Dallas.

triet@render.capital LinkedIn →

Nashville, TN

Ryan Brown

Venture Partner

Ryan joined Render as Venture Partner in April 2025, bringing fifteen years of operating, investing, and family-office experience to deals across the corridor. He covers pre-seed through Series A across multiple sectors, leaning on a personal network built across operator, founder, and LP communities.

Ryan is a founder first. He co-founded LQD, an urban WiFi infrastructure company built in partnership with Frog Design, acquired by Verizon in 2016. Before joining Render, he spent five years as Managing Director of GRA, a Nashville-based family office, where he built a personal portfolio of more than fifteen early-stage companies, including Density, PeakMetrics, Plant Baby, Cornbread Hemp, Stakeholder Labs, Circuit & PodChaser.

His path into venture started earlier than most. In 2010, Ryan and his sister Kassidy drove from Alaska to Argentina filming Journey of Action, a short-form documentary series on Generation-Y entrepreneurs sponsored by Timberland and distributed through Participant Media, Fast Company, Huffington Post, and Mashable.

Ryan is based in Nashville. BA in Political Science from Belmont University, where he played Division I tennis on scholarship. Lived previously in NYC, LA, Miami, and Lisbon; has traveled to 50+ countries.

ryan@render.capital LinkedIn →