Brent: Just a few years ago, I thought crowdfunding was probably fairly limited (beyond Kickstarter and Indiegogo). I just wasn’t sure there were enough people who would be comfortable giving money to projects on smaller platforms.
My hunch was wrong. Crowdfunding — including the relatively new style of equity crowdfunding made legal last year — has taken off and helped a lot of interesting projects succeed. And it’s happening at The University of Texas, too. The school’s HornRaiser platform has generated $1.8M in funding for about 80 student and faculty projects. And it’s not just the mass appeal projects that almost everyone can relate to. For example, a project on HornRaiser proposes “Improved Macroeconomic Modeling: Linking Energy and Debt.” It has raised more than $30K en route to a $50K goal (41 days left on the clock).
That type of support would have felt impossible just a few years ago, unless you had a generous friend or relative or were lucky enough to land a grant. Now, this type of localized crowdfunding can help unlock a generation of entrepreneurs (or help them decide to take another path). And that’s pretty badass.
There are dozens of interesting cases in the crowdfunding field, such as the Texas House’s recent move to crowdfund money for rape kits through $1 donations when you renew your license. But perhaps the most interesting new one I’ve seen is expecting parents turning to GoFundMe to crowdfund for paid maternity leave, a luxury only about 13% of workers get through their employer. It’s kind of amazing how tech has brought out the good samaritan/investor in so many people. |
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– Bill Rodrigues, president of sales for Dell EMC North America, is leaving the company. He’s being replaced on May 8 by David Schmook, president of Dell’s end-user computing business, CRN reported.
– Austin-based Rock Candy Media promoted three senior team members to partner. Sam Kimelman is now managing partner and VP of creative; Scott Mise is partner and lead web developer; and Kyle Gregory, in Los Angeles, is partner, creative director and manager of RCM West. |
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No new money today. But, I’ll take the opportunity to expand on yesterday’s Beat, in which I riffed on a new MoneyTree report showing a decline in dollars invested in startups in Q1 this year (as compared to Q1 last year).
As I was writing that, Steve Guengerich, the Austin startup and tech mentor who has moved to Dallas for a new gig, published his own analysis of venture funding. It’s an interesting dive into Texas startup funding and the investment flow in each of Texas’ major cities. It’s interesting in that it paints an important distinction between high-risk investors (VCs, angels, etc) and corporate investors that are typically more interested in intellectual property, licensing and the like. But it also gives a snapshot of investments being made in Dallas and Houston.
And there’s a theme: While Austin’s tech scene is usually focused on B2B software, exciting B2C startups and chipmakers, it’s actually oil and gas that’s driving much of the big time investment in Texas. Communications and clean energy round out the top three industries with huge investments. (Read Steve’s post right here.) |
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Galvanize is celebrating its one year anniversary in Austin with a “Level Up Luau” on Friday afternoon. They’ll share some stories, have a State of the Campus address by GM Bill Blackstone and they’ll have some food and bev on hand as well. |
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It’s a rare day that being playful works on TV news. But, I gotta send some props to the crew at KVUE. They took a story about a guy who wrote a book of poems about Austin’s gnarly traffic and turned it into a full-length poem-meets-feature story. Usually, I cringe at this sort of stuff. But, in my humble opinion, this one is brilliant and hilarious. |
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