It’s Thursday, January 24th. I'm Elise Randall, and here's your local news from the Austin American-Statesman. Our top story is: Last year, Austin metro-area companies saw a total of $1.33 billion in venture capital investments, the most since the dot-com boom era of 2000, according to a report by PricewaterhouseCoopers and CB Insights, which track venture capital deals in the United States.