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Ronald Lemay of Main Street Data

Main Street Data was formed in 2017 to bring precise data to the agriculture world. While data has improved in many other industries, agriculture remains behind the curve – and Main Street Data is here to change that. Just as a surgeon might use a laser rather than a scalpel, the agriculture industry can use far more precise data to inform our daily choices. While anecdotal information such as how a neighbor is doing can still tell us much, it’s time to put science to work in our fields. Excerpts from the interview: Ronald’s advice to those investing in fin-tech and agriculture- Look at it very carefully. Agriculture was a sleepy ecosystem at the start but not anymore. This space is full of new business models, new technology and full of disruptors. It’s rich with opportunity but requires deep due diligence to really understand how it relates to the needs of the market and how it fits competitively. Listen to full episode with Ronald LeMay You can find Main Street Data mainstreetdata.co Ronald can be reached on LinkedIn at linkedin.com/in/ronaldlemay  

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Eric Smith of AppBrilliance

At AppBrilliance, they believe that the next-big-thing in tech is the disruption of the trillion-dollar financial industry by nimble technology companies and major platform providers such as Google, Facebook, Amazon and Apple. Their platform unlocks the future of money by removing the barriers between technology companies and the financial institutions where people bank today. Excerpts from the interview: Eric’s pointers for first-time investors that want to invest in the fin-tech space. According to Eric, it’s a challenging space to invest in because there is a pretty broad disconnect between the traction that you need to have and the ability to scale. What the next stage of industry evolution is- blockchain technology is going to play a very important role as the industry starts to evolve. It just really creates a transparent way to accept funds and record those transactions so you’re able to fully maintain precise transactional data when you’re using the blockchain . Listen to full episode with Eric Smith You can find AppBrilliance at https://www.appbrilliance.com/ Eric can be reached on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/cericsmith/

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Chris Rawlings of JudoLaunch

When Chris Rawlings started Judolaunch his goal was to find the best ways to sell more on Amazon. Since then, Chris and Judolaunch have grown to help a tribe of more than 250 companies and sellers launch more than 1,000 products on Amazon. Whether you are just starting your Amazon journey or you are an Amazon business veteran, Judolaunch is here to help you create the optimal product listings, automate seller account, boost product ranking – all in order to increase sales on every Amazon marketplace. Excerpts from the interview: Chris shares his background before JudoLaunch- Chris started his career in the technical field. Chris talks about his self-described obsession with the universe, math, and what things are made of. This led him to study physics in college. After completing his degree, Chris then went into the solar industry. From there he started an e-commerce business selling spinal health products direct to consumer. This essentially led him to Judolaunch, the platform that enables Amazon sellers to launch new products and increase sales for existing products in every major market. Chris also shares his thoughts on how we are headed towards e-commerce first or e-commerce only, not as a supplement to physical retail. Listen to the full episode with Chris Rawlings You can find JudoLaunch at https://judolaunch.com Chris can be reached on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrishanemannrawlings/

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John Pope and James Walker of Welldog

Founded in 1999, WellDog’s mission is to drive global sustainability through georesource innovation.  Welldog strives to achieve this mission by excelling in three areas: Technical Innovation Business Model Innovation World Class Customer Focus WellDog was founded on the premise that innovative technologies can facilitate a future of sustainable energy resource development. Responsible, efficient exploration and production of energy has become a highly technical undertaking. Innovative technical services offer an unparalleled opportunity to improve that process, thereby reducing environmental impact, increasing safety and improving producers’ speed and profitability. WellDog has built a reputation for adapting cutting-edge technology to create practical, easy-to-adopt technical solutions for key resource evaluation and production challenges. WellDog is an energy-focused technical services company that developed its own patented, proven Reservoir Raman chemical sensing systems to provide commercial reservoir analysis services for coal, gas, alternative and conventional resources. Building on the strength of those services and the company’s world-wide customer focus, WellDog now develops, sources, advances and manages a diverse set of innovative technical solutions. The company focuses on platform technologies that enable solutions to address the critical needs of today’s unconventional and alternative energy industries in a high volume, low cost manner. Excerpts from the interview: John and James talk briefly about their background before WellDog, and how they got into the unconventional oil and gas space. James explains how, as the oil and gas industry has plateaued, technology-driven companies like WellDog are providing critical tools for growth. John explains how WellDog has helped oil and gas companies deal with price challenges in two ways. New technologies can increase both supply chain and business operation efficiencies, together with exploration and production efficiencies. Listen to the full episode with John Pope and James Walker You can find Welldog at https://www.welldog.com/ John can be reached on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/jmpope/ James can be reached on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/james-walker-86433312/

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Mick Connors of Anytime Pediatrics

Anytime Pediatrics is a part of Anytime Telehealth, a company committed to connecting patients to the healthcare providers they trust most – at any time and from anywhere – using its simple, affordable telehealth software solution. Anytime Pediatrics and Anytime Telehealth were founded in 2016 and 2018, respectively, by Dr. Mick Connors, MD, a long-time pediatrician and father of four. With more than 30 years in healthcare, including leadership roles at Connecticut Children’s Medical Center and East Tennessee Children’s Hospital, Mick has long understood the undeniable value of an individual’s relationship with his or her primary care physician, and a family’s relationship with their pediatrician. It was this understanding that inspired him to create a solution … a connector… to help ensure patients could access quality healthcare when they needed it, from their computer or mobile device, with their preferred physician, and at a price they understand and can afford. In this, Anytime Pediatrics and Anytime Telehealth were born. Excerpts from the interview: Mick was inspired to get into the medical field and pediatrics after his brother passed away from pediatric cancer before he was born. It’s been a lifelong passion. In his career in pediatric emergency medicine he is seeing more and more fragmentation of care, with children going into many different varieties of healthcare opportunities. When he developed the concept of Anytime pediatrics, he wanted to connect patients and families to the right care at the right time. Mick gives his advice on what investors should look at when going into and investing in healthcare.  Mick also discusses the growth rate of telemedicine technology and approximately how many companies are involved. As well as the challenges and risks that need to be overcome. Listen to the full episode with Mick Connors You can find Anytime Pediatrics at https://anytimepediatrics.com/ Mick can be reached on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/mick-connors-md-54a77437/

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Mike Krilivsky of RageOn!

RageOn has pioneered the art of made-to-order dye-sublimation, also known as all-over-printing, which enables print and design of any colors across the entirety of a product; essentially limitless! By printing on a made-to-order basis, RageOn saves money on inventory and storage, and is 100% green with zero waste. In 2015, RageOn gave the “freedom of creation” to the masses with the RageOn App & web creator (Patent Pending). This invention of creation is the fastest custom creation technology in the world and enables millions of people to instantly create, share, and wear their favorite designs! They’ve developed a passionate culture that encourages us all to “Never Stop Creating.” RageOn, based in San Francisco, Los Angeles, & Cleveland, has sought out 30 of the most skilled expert advisors and employees from Pinterest, Microsoft, Amazon, Apple, Uber, Google, Twitter, Airbnb, eBay, Oracle, Stanford, and MIT that share a common love for the mission of making merchandising easy for the creators of this world. Now, artists from around the globe can create and sell any design that comes to mind with no investment other than time. Within seconds, one can: signup ⇒ create a product ⇒ post their product ⇒ and then their fans can buy it – instantly! The innate human desire to create and share is the fuel of RageOn. Recently, we welcomed CEO & Co-founder Mike Krilivsky to join us on the  Investor Connect podcast to speak about his company and what led him to the on-demand print space and the primary importance of continual innovation. Excerpts from the interview: The on-demand eCommerce space is evolving in terms of licensing and branding, and how consumer expectations set by Amazon have pushed the space to where it is today. Manufacturing innovations they’ve made, how getting away from bulk manufacturing allows them to grow and pivot quickly. Legal and copyright challenges that must be addressed in a company that uses user-sourced content, and how they’ve gone about addressing them. Listen to the full episode with Mike Krilivsky  You can find Rageon! at https://www.rageon.com/ Mike can be reached on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelkrilivsky

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Travis Farese 0f Real AI

Real AI is an Austin based commercial real estate acquisitions platform. They leverage big data and artificial intelligence (AI) to source, evaluate and close investment opportunities for their clients. In combination with their organizational specialization and team based approach, their technology enables account executives to cover 10X more territory remotely. Travis is a successful entrepreneur, multifamily investor and engineer. Travis understood that some of the best deals don’t ever make it to market. He believed that data science, digital technology and people could do a better job at uncovering this hidden value and built what he called his AI acquisitions machine. He soon found that others, many others, felt the same pain. Real AI was born. Recently, we welcomed Founder/CEO Travis Farese to join us on the  Investor Connect podcast to speak about his company and more about the landscape of AI in today’s real estate industry. Excerpts from the interview: The current state of AI for commercial real estate- AI machine learning is starting to be applied more to residential real estate. How much funding is being applied- big tech companies are pouring money into data science signals that there’s a big future in this particular field and it’s a distinct programming methodology. The major challenges being faced- the challenge really is access to data. So there is an interest in understanding how to build a predictive model around the estimated Cap-Ex required in an investment opportunity and automated type of way. Listen to the full episode with Travis Farese You can find Real AI at http://www.real-ai.co Travis can be reached on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/travis-farese-6b55468/    

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TEN is 10!

TEN Capital Network is 10! As we enter our tenth year, here is look back at how it all started. Early Days In early 2000, I started angel investing when the company I worked at for 24 years went IPO. I lost all my money in my first investment. I shared my story with other investors and commented that I must have made 25 mistakes. One of the investors listening replied, “You made 50 mistakes on that deal.” It was then that I learned that investing in startups is harder than it looks. I found and joined an angel network here in Austin. As one of the first members, I was automatically invited to join the board as a membership recruiter. There was no pay, but it was a great honor. I started talking with other potential investors about joining. We could share the deal flow and the due diligence, since that was the costly part of startup investing—talking to all the potential deals and investigating the promising ones. After a few months, we lost our director, so I stepped in to lead the group as I had recruited about fifty members. We started running pitch sessions to the members and setup a deal flow process for screening, due diligence and investing. Over the next two years, we invested about $5M in twenty deals and had our first exit at a 7X return. This was quite an outlier to have such an early exit and at a high level. I’ve heard from other angel groups with more experience than mine, and their historical returns often ran something like this: “We the (insert name here) angels have been in operation for over 10 years and have invested $175M in 181 deals over that time. Of those 181 deals, the top deal returned 200X to the investors in the deal. The next one down was 7X, the next one down was 5X, the next four were 3X, and the next 15 deals were 1.5X the original investment. The bottom 159 deals returned less than 1X.” The Challenge To me, this drove home the challenge in early stage investing. The top 10% have great returns, the next 15% may return something but not much, and the bottom 75% return nothing. Along the way, I found that the biggest challenge in early-stage funding is not avoiding the “crash and burn”, but rather avoiding the “lifestyle business looking for a place to happen”. In other words, be wary of the startup that promises “it will be a rocket to the moon, so come join the ride”. I found that these startups tended to go up a little way and then plateau, never to grow much again. They might turn into a lifestyle business for the founders but provide no return to the investor (not even a tax write-off). Working in an angel network, what surprised me most was the sheer number of entrepreneurs that came to pitch to my room full of investors. Ninety percent of these entrepreneurs would leave after the pitch, and we would never hear from them again. Only ten percent would come back and tell us more about the deal, show progress, and give us updates. They were the ones that raised most of the funding. After about the fourth update, that’s when investors made their decision to invest or pass. If they invested, they knew why, and if they passed, they knew why as well. The Key to Fundraising The key to raising funding is building a relationship with the investor and demonstrating a growth story. It’s not enough to just forecast the growth story—you must show it in action. I found that, primarily, investors look for steady growth. I also found that most entrepreneurs don’t prioritize keeping their investors informed. They’re too busy building products, closing sales, and keeping their employees happy. The entrepreneurs and investors needed to patiently build a relationship based on timely and consistent communication. I decided to apply that approach to my own startup investing – instead of investing after the first meeting, I would follow the company and see what happened to it. Since public exchanges don’t list startups, this was a bit more difficult because I had to follow up with each company to see how they were doing. My father was a buy-and-hold investor in public stocks. He had watch lists and would monitor stocks for 3-6 months, noting the sales, team changes, and other news about the company. After three months, he would decide whether to buy or not. He was always learning more about the company and looking for evidence that they were on track to hit their goals. It’s hard to tell in a one-month snapshot if things are going in the right direction. After starting three angel networks in the 2000s I decided to start my own company, Texas Entrepreneur Networks, to help startups raise funding using this approach. For a while, we ran physical funding forums across the state of Texas, all the way out to El Paso. It was great to see all those investors and help those startups raise funding. There was just one flaw in that model: Texas is a big state and we were driving everywhere. Path to TEN Capital Network In 2012, we moved everything online in the form of a funding portal. The emergence of crowdfunding helped bring online technologies (portals, email updates, etc.) to the fundraising process. Previously, everything was offline, and most pitches took place in dinner-club settings where the investors and entrepreneurs had to physically meet up. In addition to simple convenience, online tools helped with screening, due diligence, deal monitoring, and more. By 2016, we had built our investor network to over 5000 accredited investors, and we began receiving calls from outside of Texas from startups that wanted access to our investors. We rebranded to TEN Capital Network and started showing companies from across the US to our investors. At that point, most of our investors had decided they wanted

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The Top Ten Security Companies in Texas

As technology advances, so does the need for security, here we list the top ten security companies in Texas. These companies include Alert Logic, Huawei Technologies, Armor,Eagle Eye Networks, iSIGHT Partners, AllClear ID,Giant Gray, Edgile Inc.,CSID and Click Security. Company Name Description Headquarters Location Alert Logic Alert Logic provides Security-as-a-Service solutions that secure the application and infrastructure stack of the cloud. Houston , Texas  Huawei Technologies Huawei Technologies provides infrastructure application software and devices with wireline, wireless, and IP technologies. Plano , Texas Armor Armor is a cyber defense company that offers customer-centric security outcomes for e-Commerce, healthcare, and financial institutions. Richardson , Texas  Eagle Eye Networks Eagle Eye Networks delivers cloud based security and operations video management system providing both cloud and on-premise recording. Austin , Texas  iSIGHT Partners Since 2007, iSIGHT Partners has been recognized as the leader in cyber threat intelligence. Dallas , Texas AllClear ID AllClear ID is the leader in customer security, helping business prepare for, respond to, and recover from data breach events. Austin, Texas Giant Gray Giant Gray develops scalable solutions that automatically identify suspicious activity from video surveillance systems. Houston, Texas Edgile Inc. Edgile Inc., a security and risk consulting services firm Austin, Texas CSID CSID provides global identity protection and fraud detection technologies for businesses and their employees and consumers. Austin, Texas Click Security Click Security provides security analytics for enterprises, critical infrastructure, and government agencies to protect their networks. provides security analytics for enterprises, critical infrastructure, and government agencies to protect their networks. Austin, Texas  

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