Family office & advisory practice · Austin, Texas

AI in production.
Your people stay in charge.

We help founders build companies, put AI into production, and bring German companies to Texas. We have done each of these ourselves.

Book a call Meet the partners
Pennybacker Bridge over Lake Austin, seen from the overlook
Three turning points we know from the inside
01 · Startups
From business model to operating company.
Business model review, company setup, fractional executives. We invest in startups ourselves: Stefan is a Venture Partner at BVV and on the deal team of the Central Texas Angel Network.
02 · AI in production
From pilot to P&L.
Organizational change, program management and AI automation that reach production. We have built systems where downtime makes the news: trading infrastructure for Merrill Lynch, the network for 22 UBS data centers, market data for the London Stock Exchange.
Consulting →
03 · Germany → Texas
Selling in Munich is not traction in Texas.
Market entry, first hires, a lean US operation. We both made this move: Stefan from Munich, Frances at Continental Automotive’s plant in Texas, working closely with the German headquarters.
Germany → Texas →
Also from Westlake
Why the consulting practice exists
6%
of companies are AI high performers, with 5% or more of EBIT from AI
McKinsey
42%
of companies abandoned most of their AI initiatives in 2025, up from 17% a year earlier
S&P Global
40%+
of agentic AI projects will be canceled by the end of 2027
Gartner
It is almost never the model. Integration, workflow, and adoption are where AI succeeds or dies. So that is where we work.
The firm

Two partners. One bench. No pyramid.

Stefan Brunner
Technology & investment
LMU Munich and a year at UC Berkeley. Principal Architect and Director of Product Management at Juniper and SonicWall; about $400M P&L. CISSP. Venture Partner at BVV. German-born, dual citizen.
Frances Brunner
Programs & finance
Continental Automotive, Applied Materials, the Rockdale data-center site, Austin Community College and UT Austin. PMP and ITIL. Adjunct professor at ACC, professor at St. Edward’s University.
The bench
Associated experts
Senior specialists we have worked with for years, on call until an engagement needs them. Billed through Westlake, accountable through Westlake.
There is no pyramid of juniors. You talk to the partners.
People →
How we consult

The Westlake Method

01 · Testbed
Proves it works, on your data, in your environment.
02 · Pilot
Proves net gain in one real workflow, measured against the baseline.
03 · Production
Earns the rollout. Team trained, systems documented, owners named.
Kill criteria agreed up front. Production, or stop.
“We’ve worked with these models since GPT-2, before the hype had a name. Hundreds of AI companies have crossed our venture desk since. We know what’s real, what’s already yesterday, and what’s never going to ship.”
·25 years enterprise infrastructure & product ·~$400M P&L ·UBS: 22 data centers, $150M in Juniper gear ·London Stock Exchange market data ·UK broadband for Bulldog, 2004 ·6,500 7‑Eleven stores ·The original Apple Stores (security) ·Nike’s global stores ·O’Reilly author ·JNCIE‑SEC #00005 co‑author ·SonicWall CEO Award 2022 ·SonicWall Boundless Cybersecurity Award 2021 (Texas A&M)
We do not replace people. We redesign the work and automate what should be automated, so a growing company can do more without adding staff at the same pace. For every workflow we design, we decide what stays human (judgment, relationships, accountability) and write down why.
Next step

Bring the real problem.

Thirty minutes, no deck required. We will tell you honestly whether we can help.

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