Texas Startups Roadshow Wrap-up
Last week I took to the Texas highways with dozens of other investors from around the country and around the world on an epic three day adventure from Dallas to Frisco to Houston to Austin. These two buses represented billions of dollars in capital that is interested in investing in the Texas region and we matched them up with local investors, entrepreneurs, and community leaders in each city that we visited.
This is all part of the Texas Startup Manifesto which is about uniting the state of Texas into one startup ecosystem and helping entrepreneurs recruit talent, find customers, and attract investors from across the state.
The roadshow was a successful trip that we will definitely repeat in 2020. Not only was it productive at building relationships between investors and driving direct investment, but it was also a lot of fun, too! Follow @TexasManifesto on Twitter to find out the dates for the next one or visit TexasStartups.com!
Thank you to Alton McDowell, Frank Medrano, Ben Halliday and the rest of the J.P. Morgan for having the vision to see the possibilities and the patience to work through getting J.P. Morgan to approve a robot bus with their logo on it!
Here are three, 30-second clips that capture the best of each day in each city.
Day 1 — Dallas and Frisco
We started the morning off at Old Parkland in Uptown Dallas, which is “the Capital Factory of private equity” — a community where many of the wealthiest family offices in Texas have offices together. We were welcomed by Harlan Crow, the creator of Old Parkland and icon of Dallas investors. We heard from President Benson from the University of Texas at Dallas, Duane Dankesrieter from the Dallas Regional Chamber, and Trey Bowles from the Dallas Entrepreneur Center.
North Dallas is the financial center of Texas. All of the big companies in Texas that are not energy-related are headquartered in Dallas and Frisco. Dallas is a major transportation hub in the center of the country that is home to American Airlines and Southwest Airlines as well as Toyota. It’s also the home to AT&T, Capital One, and Texas Instruments. Dallas is also known for retail and fashion, sports and entertainment, and proptech. It even has one energy company that happens to be the biggest company in the world — ExxonMobil.
Then we headed to Capital Factory in Uptown Dallas to hear from Mance Harmon, the CEO and co-founder of Hedera Hashgraph. After that we went upstairs to the kitchen for Epic Office Hours — a massive speed dating event between the investors on the bus and local entrepreneurs and investors. Every 15 minutes a bell rings and everyone changes seats — but it’s not just random — our team spent hours and built algorithms to carefully match based on stage and interest.
After that we got on the buses and headed up the road to Frisco to visit Neighborhood Goods, an innovative new concept for retail that lets brands test out new concepts and markets. From there we went to the Dallas Star complex to visit the brand new Gamestop Complexity Gaming eSports training facility and also the Dallas Cowboys. We learned about what the University of North Texas is doing to invite innovation in Frisco and had drinks in the Cowboys Club before hopping on the buses to Houston.
Day 2 — Houston
In Houston, we started the morning off at WeWork’s downtown location where we heard from serial entrepreneur Misha Govshteyn about why he’s building his company in Houston again. Then we heard Blair Garrou from Mercury Fund, Doug Erwin from Red House, Paul Hobby from Texas Monthly, and Sandy Wallis from HX Fund talk about Investing in Houston and heard Emily Keeton from WeWork, Gaby Rowe from Station Houston, Lawson Gow from The Cannon, and Gina Luna from Houston Exponential talk about the Houston startup ecosystem.
Houston has traditionally been home to dirty, dangerous, industrial startups that service the oil & gas industry and also digital health and biotechnology startups that sell into healthcare institutions. Houston is the US headquarters for about 25 oil & gas and energy companies — most all of them. This is slowly expanding focus to cleantech and smart cities. Houston is also home to the Texas Medical Center — the largest collection of hospitals (and patients) in the world including the largest children’s hospital and cancer center. If you want to sell into healthcare, Houston is the place to be.
Then we broke into another massive Epic Office Hours speed dating session with Houston entrepreneurs and investors before getting on the buses for a backstage tour of the robotics programs at NASA Johnson Space Center. Space is the third thing that Houston is known for and a massive opportunity for startups that work with rockets, satellites or sensor data.
From there we drove to the Texas Medical Center to join the dinner showcase for the end of the TMCx Digital Health cohort where we met a dozen digital health startups from around the world. Finally we got on the buses to head to Austin but made sure to stop at Buc-ees Gas Station on the way there!
Day 3 — Austin
On the final day, we stayed at Capital Factory in downtown Austin starting things off with Hugh Forrest from SXSW followed by Kendra Scott, creator of the jewelry unicorn that bears her name. After we heard Kendra’s story we all smelled warm cookies as Tiff’s Treats were delivered to the audience and founder and CEO Leon Chen took the stage along with Genevieve Gilbreath from Springdale Ventures and Robert Gauntt from Capital Creek. The message — Austin is a CPG powerhouse and the rest of the world doesn’t seem to know it yet.
It’s the one thing that everyone in Austin knows but the rest of the world hasn’t caught on to yet. Austin is one of the best places for launching a startup focused on consumer packaged goods (CPG) and food products.
With Whole Foods, Sweet Leaf Tea, Deep Eddy Vodka, Siete Foods, Waterloo, Outdoor Voices, Tiff’s Treats, P Terry’s, Veggie Noodles, and so many other success stories there is now a robust ecosystem of experienced entrepreneurs, angel investors, support organizations, distribution channels, and professional investors.
Then we headed upstairs to the Star Wars floor for our last round of Epic Office Hours speed dating with Austin entrepreneurs and investors. This always my favorite part of the day — there is nothing better than the energy in the room when 50 different meetings are happening at once and nothing more real than an entrepreneur pitching her heart out to try and convince an investor to believe.
After those meetings we headed up to the new Center for Defense Innovation floor anchored by the Army Futures Command and Booz Allen Hamilton to learn more about their mission and what some of the investment opportunities are. We heard from real warfighters about the technology challenges they are facing — particularly around simulation and training using virtual reality. Then five startups with potential solutions to Army problems pitched to the Capital Factory investment panel and we picked Zpeg compression technology to win the $100,000 investment prize.
The Army Futures Command is working with the startup community instead of traditional defense contractors because they are looking for “dual use” applications of technology that has been developed for commercial use but can also be used by the government.
That night, the trip culminated in the Capital Factory 10 Year Anniversary Party as thousands of members of the Austin startup community turned out to celebrate. There was a robot cake, a silent disco, augmented reality dodgeball, augmented reality DJ, a Texas bluegrass band, robot characterture drawings, liquid nitrogen ice cream, a donut wall, and yes, of course, the dancing robots on stilts!
On Friday, we wrapped things up racing Audi street cars at the Circuit of the Americas racetrack.
