Kerrville’s Texas Venture Crawl, 10/6/23

Authored by Katie Milton Jordon, Director of Business Development, Entrepreneurship, & Talent for Kerr Economic Development Corporation:

Kerrville showed up BIG for the first ever Texas Venture Crawl! Meaningful discussions were had, valuable connections were made, and a great time was had by all! Many thanks to our event sponsors (HCTC, JAM Broadcasting, Kerrville Hills Winery, Pint & Plow Brewing Company, and Schreiner University) and our expert panelists for y’all’s remarkable contributions. What a great moment for the Kerr County venture ecosystem.

Panelists included: Bob Jones, Principal at Scientia Advisors & Founding Principal at Great Dome Associates LLC; Dusty Block, COO at Texas Business Buyers; Matt Bogler; CPA at Davidson Freedle; Wynita Walther, Director of Marketing and Public Relations at Hill Country Youth Ranch; Greg Richards, Business Attorney; Ron Ondechek, Managing Director and Founder at South Highland Ventures LLC; Toby Appleton, Marketing Director at Jam Broadcasting. View more from Kerr Economic Development Corporation’s Facebook page here.

Howard Freeman, Founder & Principal, Lenox Hill Partners:

The Venture Crawl in Kerrville was great. There have been people cultivating the Hill Country venture ecosystem for a while now: Ron Ondechek Jr, Justin McKenzie, Katie Milton Jordan, Wynita Walther and many others, but not until I went that Friday night did I see the people and vision coming together. Very exciting times.

Wynita Walther, CEO of A Way Private Car Service:

Fantastic event! Thank you Kerr Economic Development Corporation for hosting the business community in this special way. Appreciate what y’all are doing and for what’s ahead!!

CS Freeland, Texas Venture Alliance: Kerrville has so much charm, it’s hard leaving such a great town! Katie really brought out a crowd— everyone interested in seeing innovation getting funded and flourishing. Because of her dedication, so many folks from Kerrville came out to a great venue that had live music at the end. Kerr EDC even gifted wine and leather bound notebooks… a really great way to show off the Hill Country culture and style. Thank you also to Bradley Barnett from the Kerrville Chamber of Commerce for bringing me on their business podcast to also help amplify the regional and statewide of startup support. What a collaborative community and fantastic event!

Put the next statewide, simultaneous venture networking experience on your calendar for next year here.

About the Texas Venture Crawl

The Texas Venture Crawl is a simultaneous statewide startup and investor networking experience founded in 2022 and is a partnership between Texas Venture Alliance and leading cohosts all across Texas. It started in downtown Austin, hosted in 5 venues, used 3 venture shuttle stops, and attracted more than 1,300 attendees.

This year it grew to 10 cities, 15 venues, 22 committee members, 10 volunteers, 40+ venture panelists, and 2,500+ Texans. The following cities participated: Austin, Dallas, Round Rock, Houston, Kerrville, Brownsville, El Paso, Buda, Boerne, and San Antonio.

Thank you to the “Texas-sized” statewide sponsors: Pacific Western Bank, Akerman, the Texas State Chamber of Commerce (Texas Association of Business), In Good Taste Wines, Liquid Death Water, and returning supporter from the first founding sponsorship of the Venture Crawl, Eisner Amper.