Reporting on San Antonio’s Startups

EnergyFunders offers direct investing in oil wells, Bitcoin mines

29Mar

By Iris GonzalezNo Comments

EnergyFunders offers direct investing in oil wells, Bitcoin mines

A new feature is popping up at U.S. oil patches in the Rockies and Great Plains — trailers filled with computers and generators set up to mine Bitcoin at oil well sites. Bitcoin mining rigs take advantage of natural gas found in formations while drilling for oil. Oil can be trucked out from remote destinations, but getting gas to market requires a pipeline. "Stranded" natural gas that cannot be moved to market gets flared or burned off, creating carbon dioxide emissions, or gets vented as methane into the atmosphere. With less than 10 large-scale North American Bitcoin mining companies powered by stranded natural gas in 2022, the trend is still in its early stages. Enter EnergyFunders, the first-ever online investment marketplace to offer direct access to oil and gas well sites and off-...

Trinity University names finalists in Spring 2022 Stumberg Venture Competition

24Mar

By Iris GonzalezNo Comments

Articles, Featured

Trinity University names finalists in Spring 2022 Stumberg Venture Competition

Ten Trinity University student entrepreneur teams pitched business ideas to judges Thursday for a chance to win mentorship and funding for their startup at Trinity’s Louis H. Stumberg New Venture Competition. Judges chose seven finalists working on concepts as varied as a medical device for shoulder rehabilitation, a convertible backpack stroller, a wearable safety device for young children, a metronome wristband, a fintech app, an educational program, and a debate team resource platform.Since its launch in 2016, this two-part university-wide competition has encouraged Trinity student entrepreneur teams to compete for equity-free funding for their startups. A panel of judges typically chooses five teams to move onto the second and final round each fall. Each team receives $5,000 in see...

Here’s who’s pitching March 30 at the BioMedSA BioFest

11Mar

By Iris GonzalezNo Comments

Articles, Featured

Here’s who’s pitching March 30 at the BioMedSA BioFest

If you ask Heather Hanson about innovation in the life science and biotechnology spaces in Texas, she would tell you activity has been apace over the past couple of years despite the pandemic. Hanson is CEO of BioMedSA, a member-driven organziation that promotes healthcare and biomedical industries in San Antonio. Its mission is to accelerate the growth of the healthcare and bioscience sector, create regional economic benefit, and contribute to the health of San Antonio and beyond."Collaboration is embedded in the life science industry, as companies routinely connect with other organizations in San Antonio," Hanson said. "BioMedSA serves to facilitate those collaborations as a hub for the life science industry in San Antonio."The nonprofit is holding its annual BioFest on March 30...

Austin’s S3 Ventures closes $250M fund to invest in Texas startups

9Mar

By Iris GonzalezNo Comments

Articles, Featured

Austin’s S3 Ventures closes $250M fund to invest in Texas startups

Austin-based S3 Ventures, the largest venture capital (VC) firm focused on Texas-based technology companies, closed its seventh fund Wednesday of $250 million. The venture firm invests in early-stage innovative tech startups across Texas. Managing director Brian Smith founded S3 Ventures in 2005 with a $20 million fund. At 29, Smith founded and served as chairman and CEO of Crossroads Systems, a holding company focused on investing in businesses that promote economic vitality and community development. He led Crossroads through five financing rounds to a successful initial public offering or IPO in 1999. The venture firm has previously raised $435M across six funds and has assets under management surpassing $900 million. They have invested in over 50 businesses, including more than...

Bluegrass Vascular Closes $5M in Convertible Debt Financing

3Mar

By Iris GonzalezNo Comments

Articles, Featured

Bluegrass Vascular Closes $5M in Convertible Debt Financing

Bluegrass Vascular Technologies has closed $5 million in convertible debt financing for its innovation, the Surfacer Inside-Out Access Catheter System. Convertible debt notes enable a startup without a valuation to raise capital quickly and less expensively than equity as an alternative to a conventional bank loan.Funding will go toward the commercial expansion of Bluegrass Vascular’s Surfacer System, the first FDA-cleared medical device that facilitates access to obstructed central veins in a patient's upper body.The Surfacer System helps facilitate catheter insertion into the central venous system for patients with upper body venous obstructions or other conditions that prevent central venous access using conventional methods. Bluegrass' innovation meets an unmet cl...

Here’s 8 steps to prepare your startup for acquisition

2Mar

By Guest AuthorNo Comments

Articles, Featured, Guest Posts

Here’s 8 steps to prepare your startup for acquisition

Matthew Duke is a San Antonio-based transactional business attorney specializing in mergers and acquisitions. Follow Duke on Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn as @Stxbusinesslawyer and @STXbusinesslaw on Twitter.Financial professionals and lawyers like me can negotiate every detail of your proposed deals. But how exactly can a founder ensure that their startup is ready for an acquisition? This simplified checklist can guide you on what it takes to be acquisition-ready. What exactly is M&A? Mergers and acquisitions (often referred to as M&A) is an approach startups can use to buy cash flow, revenue, and other companies’ traffic. Founders can potentially gain a larger share of markets with the right kind of M&A deal. It’s also a way entrepreneurs can pivot, consolidate, and...

Geekdom aims to launch 500 new startups in San Antonio

23Feb

By Iris GonzalezNo Comments

Articles, Featured

Geekdom aims to launch 500 new startups in San Antonio

Geekdom — a technology-centric co-working space — shared milestones from its first 10 years in operation to convey how it has fostered the growing startup economy in San Antonio.Entrepreneur and philanthropist Graham Weston and entrepreneur and mentor Nick Longo launched Geekdom in 2011. Located on Houston Street in the heart of downtown San Antonio, the co-working community was the first in San Antonio focused on helping aspiring entrepreneurs refine their ideas into thriving businesses. Today, the co-working community has over 1,300 members and 50 office spaces. Geekdom offers a variety of programs designed to help first-time founders learn how to incubate and refine ideas into a successful startup.Over the past 10 years, Geekdom has helped founders build successful new comp...

Female founders: Apply for $100K pitch competition by March 8

21Feb

By Iris GonzalezNo Comments

Articles, Featured

Female founders: Apply for $100K pitch competition by March 8

HearstLab is holding its first-ever pitch competition to fund women-led startups in the Southern U.S. HearstLab is an investor in early-stage women-led startups. Their mission is to close the gap in venture capital funding for women by helping founders build healthy, sustainable, and highly scalable businesses.The competition is open to female founders with majority equity in their startup based in Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, or Texas.The deadline to apply is March 8, you can submit your application here. The San Antonio Express-News is partnering on this program to “elevate female-led technology within San Antonio and surrounding areas, as well as to assist in attracting a broader t...

Turn Medical Closes $3.8M Funding for Automated Hospital Bed

16Feb

By Iris GonzalezNo Comments

Articles, Featured

Turn Medical Closes $3.8M Funding for Automated Hospital Bed

The San Antonio medical device company Turn Medical has closed bridge funding of $3.8 million from a group of U.S. investors to support the commercialization of its first product for critically ill patients with severe respiratory issues. Turn Medical's automated hospital bed rotates the patient safely and easily to a prone position onto their abdomen. Called the Pronova-O2 Automated Prone Therapy System, the bed provides an effective and efficient way for clinicians to move patients into the prone position safely and easily. Prone positioning is recommended for critically ill patients with severe acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), which accounts for about 10% of all admissions to intensive care units (ICUs) worldwide. Prone therapy is now considered the standard of care for th...

14Feb

By Iris GonzalezNo Comments

Articles, Startups and Speakers Lists

San Antonio Startups to Watch in 2022

San Antonio's startup scene is maturing. Local founders are raising more money than ever before, while venture capitalists are paying more attention to our ecosystem, looking for lucrative companies to invest in.We still have work to do, but take this as a vote for guarded optimism about the state of San Antonio startups. Since we started this list in 2019, our annual compilations (also see our lists from 2020 and 2021) have highlighted startups that are still in the game and growing steadily. Companies on these lists such as FloatMe, Plus One Robotics, and Grain4Grain are scaling operations, hiring talent, and scoring investment dollars. Our startup ecosystem reflects innovation across many different fields. You'll find on the 2022 list more than the expected biomedical, Software-...