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San Antonio Startups to Watch in 2023
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San Antonio Startups to Watch in 2023

San Antonio's startup scene is maturing. Since we started this list in 2019, our annual compilations (see our lists from 2020, 2021, and 2022) have highlighted startups disrupting industries and growing steadily. Companies on these lists, such as Plus One Robotics, Allosense, and FloatMe, are scaling operations, hiring talent, and scoring investment dollars. San Antonio's startup ecosystem reflects innovation across many different industry sectors. This year, we've included founders leveraging advanced technologies in real estate development, on-demand personal security, drones, biotech, and digital health. Criteria We do not repeat company mentions from year to year.Our unranked alphabetical list of startups features early-stage companies leveraging innovation with promisi...
What changed in San Antonio’s innovation ecosystem in 2022?
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What changed in San Antonio’s innovation ecosystem in 2022?

What a difference a year makes. The San Antonio Startup Ecosystem Map represents a somewhat sequential startup life cycle. This macro-level graphic lists local entrepreneurial resources available in San Antonio throughout a founder’s journey, from a student interested in starting a company to a CEO looking for investment to scale operations.Compared with our first map version (which showed the startup resources in San Antonio from February to November 2018), San Antonio has since added many programs, organizations, and stakeholders supporting local startup activity.Many date Geekdom’s 2011 opening as the start of San Antonio’s downtown tech scene. These efforts at building programs and mentoring resources for startups continue to this day.How long does it take to create a s...
Alamo Angels invests all-time high of $1.6M in 2022
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Alamo Angels invests all-time high of $1.6M in 2022

Alamo Angels has invested $1.6M in 2022, an all-time high for the San Antonio-based angel investment group. That amount is almost triple the $600,000 the angel funding group invested in 2021 and equals the amount funded in Alamo Angel’s first five years.Founded in 2016, Alamo Angels invests in innovative early-stage companies. The organization has invested $3.2 million in 32 active companies to date. Three-quarters of the companies are based in Texas, with 44% in San Antonio. Half of these companies are run by minority founders, and 25% of the companies have female founders or CEOs.Alamo Angels’ most recent early-stage financing equity funding was awarded to three San Antonio-based startups: Betty’s Co., PrintNet3D, and Darkhive.Betty’s Co. won the top prize in the 2021 TechFue...
Darkhive drone startup closes $1M pre-seed funding
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Darkhive drone startup closes $1M pre-seed funding

Darkhive closed its $1.1 million in pre-seed funding for its affordable drones explicitly designed for military and public safety use. Alamo Angels, a San Antonio-based angel investing group, also participated in Darkhive’s pre-seed funding round. Defense industry executive and U.S. Special Operations veteran John Goodson launched Darkhive in Sept. 2021. Since then, he and chief technology officer Steven Turner have been developing an effective, affordable alternative for military and law enforcement use. Both Goodson and Turner have extensive backgrounds in systems engineering and the defense sector. They are producing affordable alternatives because the drones produced domestically for the military and public safety sectors are much too expensive for practical use. “We have o...
LASO Health raises $8M for innovative healthcare platform
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LASO Health raises $8M for innovative healthcare platform

We’ve all experienced the frustration of looking for a doctor to diagnose a concerning symptom, calling multiple practices to find the right one, and waiting weeks for an appointment at a final cost you discover only later. What if, in just minutes, you could search for local healthcare services, compare doctors and prices, and book an appointment at an upfront set price — by using a free app on your cellphone?This vision drove San Antonio nephrologist Dr. Hamed "Reza" Mizani to create LASO Health. The founder of the South Texas Renal Care Group is determined to improve patient access to healthcare. Over the past two decades as a practicing physician, Mizani has seen firsthand how patients suffer from the painful, costly complications of deferred healthcare.LASO Health is a mobile ...
Developmate solves due diligence challenges for real estate developers
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Developmate solves due diligence challenges for real estate developers

For San Angelo native Christian Garcia, moving to San Antonio in 2019 was a done deal after touring Geekdom, a startup community and co-working space based in downtown San Antonio. That decision paid off for the first-time founder.Garcia is the CEO of Developmate, a software platform that simplifies real estate due diligence for developers. Earlier in 2022, he began to develop his startup idea as a participant in Geekdom’s incubator program. Garcia then completed Geekdom’s pre-accelerator program just before competing in San Antonio’s largest cash-prize pitch competition for startups.While attending Geekdom’s pre-accelerator, Garcia gained a technical co-founder and COO in Maxwell Kennady. After only six months in operation, Developmate also had over $70,000 in sales from its first...
VelocityTX backs military medical SAMMI Innovation Fund in San Antonio
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VelocityTX backs military medical SAMMI Innovation Fund in San Antonio

VelocityTX announced new military medical partnership agreements to support local military medical research. The San Antonio nonprofit, a subsidiary of the Texas Research & Technology Foundation (TRTF), helps early-stage bioscience companies launch innovative breakthroughs. VelocityTX agreed to fund the continuation of the San Antonio Military Medical Innovation (SAMMI) program and its director position under the VelocityTX umbrella. On August 30, 2022, the San Antonio Economic Development Corporation (SAEDC) board approved a professional services agreement with  VelocityTX. SAEDC is a nonprofit corporation created in 2010 by the City to promote economic development. San Antonio Military Medical Innovation (SAMMI) Fund The SAMMI Fund was created in December 2019 to provide financial...
Secur launches on-demand private security app
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Secur launches on-demand private security app

You're leaving work, walking home alone in the darkness. Or your family member is home alone, and a stranger lurks at the door and won't leave. These situations don't warrant a call to the police until, sadly, after something dreadful happens. Now, individuals can access private security on-demand via an app. Secur delivers accessible, affordable on-demand personal security to individuals and small businesses across Texas. The San Antonio-based startup launched its service in August and serves Dallas, Houston, Austin, and San Antonio, with national expansion plans to follow. Secur CEO Gray Hardaway and chief of operations Torri Majors-Garza began talking about launching an on-demand personal security app in the summer of 2020. Both founders are serial entrepreneurs. Hardaway has launche...
Bunker Labs Relaunches San Antonio Chapter to Support Veteran Startups
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Bunker Labs Relaunches San Antonio Chapter to Support Veteran Startups

Great news for veterans — Bunker Labs is back in San Antonio, Texas.This national nonprofit organization is dedicated to supporting veterans and service members as they transition from a military career to entrepreneurship, with programs that can help them launch a startup or small business.Bunker Labs supports veterans virtually and with in-person entrepreneurial programs in almost 40 major cities across the U.S. The San Antonio chapter first launched in 2016, only to shut down during the height of the pandemic in 2020.CEO Blake Hogan said Bunker Labs has relaunched its three main programs in San Antonio.Veterans in ResidenceVeterans in Residence is a business incubator for veteran-owned and military spouse-owned startups. Bunker Labs partners with WeWork to deliver th...
How Startups Can Weather Challenging Economic Times
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How Startups Can Weather Challenging Economic Times

Andi Littlejohn is chief of the EPIcenter Energy Incubator and Accelerator (EEIA). EPIcenter is a nonprofit organization propelling energy innovation and thought for our global future with a think tank, incubator and accelerator, strategic partnerships, and critical conversations about energy, with the aim to support startups in all phases of development to incite the energy evolution.Startups and small businesses will always fight an uphill battle when innovating and commercializing technologies, regardless of the external economic conditions. More established enterprises have advantages that startups do not – more financial resources, larger teams with more diverse areas of expertise, and more robust legal teams to protect innovations, to name a few.In an economic downturn such ...