October 9, 2023

Fellow Texans,

(…and the nearly 2,000 new Texas Venture Newsletter subscribers since the last edition published… just last month!)

Thank you for a tremendous inaugural Texas Venture Crawl, the statewide, simultaneous gathering for our ecosystem of startup support. On October 6, 2023, we saw fantastic Texan leadership across ten very different regions featuring venture-focused programming, networking events, and organizations coming together to serve as a resource for their local and statewide community— all in one special evening.

This record-breaking event for the country had 10 cities, 15 venues, 40+ venture panelists, and 2,900 Texans. It was a proud, and truly the only real “Texas-sized” moment for our state co-hosted in: Dallas, Austin, Round Rock, Houston, El Paso, Kerrville, Brownsville, Boerne, Buda, and San Antonio.

It was a great convening of: venture capitalists, accelerators, incubators, studios, angel networks, limited partners, coworking spaces, chambers of commerce, economic development corporations, startup community organizers, state representatives, congresspeople, members of the media, and of course startups.

A few highlights from each of the Texas Venture Crawls as every single one was so special:

TEXAS VENTURE CRAWL HIGHLIGHTS:

Dallas: Hosted an group visiting from Red River Rivalry / OU vs. Texas. This venue was a consolidation of all of the DFW Metroplex including Fort Worth, Arlington, Frisco, and more
Austin: Daytime programming of Venture Podcast Panels lead up to the Crawl. Austin offered a choice of Venture Shuttles such as a horse, longhorn Cadillac art car, and eCab. Congressman Lloyd Doggett participated
Round Rock: Round Rock Chamber presented a $20,000 check to a startup
Houston: Second most popular Texas Venture Crawl / needed to reopen more registration capacity even 5 days before the event
El Paso: Intimate venture workshop/panel sessions offered… also held in a different time zone!
Kerrville: Gifted wine bottles, leather bound notebooks, hired a keynote speaker
Brownsville: Made custom Texas Venture Crawl stickers & signs. Some of the panel was in Spanish
Boerne: Hosted in a brand new and first coworking space, by the state’s newest angel network
Buda: Featured a flying house startup. Greater San Marcos Partnership also helped promote and attend
San Antonio: Created a huge “Texas Venture Crawl” balloon wall

Having 15 events, all at the same time and on a Friday evening is a testament to not just the cohesion between our cities, it’s a showcase that we can do something big when we act as a state.

Texas simply cannot act small— we must be big. I hope all of you Texas startup founders and investors feel the Texan Spirit of frontierism, adventure, boldness, and courage, independence while also being helpful and neighborly, as you continue to lead.

To better align with the requirement of thinking and acting big: the “Texas Venture Crawl” name will now be updated to “Texas Venture Fest”. It still serves to convene and spotlight of the greater venture ecosystem of startup support, and the “Crawl” component will be just one initiative factoring into the experience as our statewide community continues to grow.

So from the bottom of my heart, I want to say to every contributor of this unique event that you are deeply appreciated. You helped your region while also connecting them into the statewide support network.

And finally, I want to give a little extra recognition to the following Founding Board Members from these 6 companies who sponsored the creation of this event. Without them it would not be possible: Mercury Fund, Softeq Venture Studio, Pacific Western Bank, law firm Akerman, our advocacy partner the Texas Association of Business (the Texas State Chamber of Commerce), and our returning and initial sponsor from last year’s very first Venture Crawl the tax, accounting & audit provider EisnerAmper. Please thank them any time you see them as they have seriously made a big-as-Texas impact on innovation… and we just got started y’all.

Contact me to learn more about becoming a Founding Texas Venture Board Member, Founding Committee Member, Founding Sponsor, or Founding Partner to help co-create Texas Venture Alliance as a collective statewide effort.