LAST UPDATED March 30, 2023
Welcome to San Antonio’s startup community! This page lists San Antonio startup resources to get you started on your journey as an entrepreneur in San Antonio.
This page will be updated as San Antonio’s ecosystem evolves, so if you see something missing, please reach out to us at editor@startupssanantonio.com.
More international founders are moving to San Antonio. Are you an immigrant who has moved to San Antonio and need help starting your business in the U.S.? Here’s an immigrant’s guide to launching and funding your startup.
Looking for speakers?
Check out our:
Helpful Articles for Startups
- The 83(b) Election: What Startup Founders Need to Know
- Debunking Common Trademark Myths for Founders
- Anti-Dilution Provisions: Which One is Best for Founders?
- Look at Terms When Raising Money During the COVID-19 Pandemic
- Free Tools and Resources for Startups
- Check Out These Four Business Grants To Fund Your Startup
- Your Startup Purpose Determines its Legal Structure
- Choosing the Best Legal Structure for Your Startup
- Watershed Idea Foundry ‘One-Stop-Shop’ Helps Biotech Startups Get Ideas to Market
- Crown Scientific — A Research Lab Space for Startups
Startup Events
Check out the latest startup-related San Antonio events at the SA Business Calendar. Their comprehensive calendar (started by this San Antonio startup team) lists business events in San Antonio, including startup, tech, cybersecurity, and bioscience-focused ones.
San Antonio Startups Listing
The Alamo Angels are a group of business leaders and corporate sponsors who invest in local business growth. Alamo Angel’s listing of open jobs at San Antonio startups is a great place to find companies that are growing and looking for talent.
Geekdom also has an internal directory of its startup members developing their companies or operating them in their co-working space. Contact Geekdom for more information on member startups at info@geekdom.com.
Student STEM Education and Entrepreneurship Resources
There are many student entrepreneurship programs and resources. Below are some of those organizations focused on student STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) education and entrepreneurship in San Antonio.
The landscape of STEM education programs and resources in San Antonio (luckily!) merits its own ecosystem map. The City of San Antonio is a STEM Learning Ecosystem Initiative city in which STEM learning stakeholders coordinate efforts to help students join the future STEM and STEAM (plus art) workforce. The group has a more comprehensive listing of STEM learning resources.
Below are some of the organizations focused on helping students become tech and science entrepreneurs:
Open to all students
- San Antonio CyberPatriot Center of Excellence
- SASTEMIC
- Students + Startups is open to students nationwide.
- VentureLab
- Youth Code Jam
School-specific programs
- Alamo Heights High School Business Incubator
- CAST Tech High School mentoring program
- Hallmark Univ. Eastside Cyberforce Prime
- Northside School of Innovation, Technology, and Entrepreneurship (NSITE) High School Mentoring Program
- Reagan H.S. Business INCubator
- Champion High School (Boerne) Incubator
- Trinity University Stumberg Venture Competition
- Trinity University summer accelerator program
- Trinity University Venture Mentoring Service
- UTSA-UT Health SA Joint Venture Mentoring Service
- UTSA’s CITE technology entrepreneurship boot camp
- UTSA’s CEO (collegiate entrepreneurs organization) incubator community
- UTSA Catalyst Lab
- UTSA Science and Technology Makerspace
Startup Programs
San Antonio’s growing list of boot camps, incubators, and accelerators is meeting the demand for specialized mentoring and resources.
- Startup boot camps can be an entry into the startup community by teaching basic skills in entrepreneurship or by acting like highly compressed incubators.
- An incubator primarily aims to help the entrepreneur vet, validate, and refine their proposed solution.
- An accelerator generally takes a small percentage of equity in exchange for small amounts of capital and mentorship over the course of a coaching program ranging from three to six months.
San Antonio’s startup incubators, accelerators, and other entrepreneurial programs include those listed below (and does not include entrepreneurial programs specifically designed for students).
- Break Fast & Launch is the first culinary startup accelerator in the U.S.
- Bunker Labs offers military members, veterans, and their families entrepreneurial resources and programs.
- Capital Factory has launched a San Antonio program office at Port San Antonio.
- Crown Scientific offers bioscience incubator and accelerator support as well as wet lab resources for biomedical entrepreneurs.
- Emerge and Rise is a nonprofit offering incubator and accelerator programs for entrepreneurs.
- EPIcenter Energy Incubator and Accelerator Program for energy startups launched in 2018.
- InCube Labs biotech incubator works with promising bioscience startup companies.
- Geekdom has a pre-accelerator program and incubator program.
- gener8ator is a cybersecurity accelerator housed at Geekdom.
- LaunchSA partners with LiftFund and the San Antonio Economic Development Department to offer programs and mentorship.
- LiftFund Women’s Business Center has many programs only for female entrepreneurs.
- LiftFund Women’s Business Accelerator is designed for female-run businesses.
- Maestro Entrepreneur Center offers an accelerated incubator program for entrepreneurs.
- Notley Fellowship is a two-year program for founders working on social impact startups.
- One Million Cups chapter in San Antonio and the San Marcos chapter provides networking and support for entrepreneurs.
- Scaleworks is an aggregator, investor, and accelerator for business-to-business SaaS (software-as-a-service) startups.
- SCORE (San Antonio chapter) is a source of mentoring for small business owners.
- TMCx medical tech innovation program (based in Houston but open to San Antonio founders) is tailored to healthcare entrepreneurs with access to specialized mentors.
- VelocityTX Tech Novum accelerator is designed for researcher faculty to commercialize bioscience advances for the market.
- UTSA New Venture Incubator is run by the University of Texas at San Antonio.
- UTSA Small Business Development Center offers programs for entrepreneurs, not just their students.
- VelocityTX has a BioGlobal Accelerator program for bioscience entrepreneurs.
- Venture for America is a two-year fellowship program for recent grads who want to work at a startup and create jobs in American cities.
- Watershed Idea Foundry offers bioscience incubator and accelerator support as well as wet lab resources for biomedical entrepreneurs.
Industry Education and Training
- 100 Black Men has a partnership with New Apprenticeship to train black men in San Antonio
- Coder Dojo Collaborative (free training offered twice monthly)
- Codeup (coding and data science programs, including a location at Rackspace headquarters called Codeup Cloud Academy)
- DC Industries (IT and cyber training for veterans)
- Dynamic Advancement (IT and cybersecurity-focused training)
- Codeup Cloud Academy (program based at Rackspace headquarters)
- Microsoft Software and Systems Academy (cybersecurity and IT training program for military members)
- New Apprenticeship (workforce training in digital marketing)
- Project Quest (cyber and coding workforce development training programs)
- Rosie Network remote entrepreneurship programs for military spouses
- San Antonio Museum of Science and Technology (SAMSAT) Tech Training Hub (tech careers training programs)
- Tech Talent South (coding and web development classes for adults and children)
- UTSA Coding Boot Camp (24-week coding program)
San Antonio Startup Spaces
San Antonio has a variety of spaces for all types of startups that suit a founder’s needs for location, access, budget, benefits, and vibe. It’s no longer just about co-working!
Co-working spaces offer startups a shared working environment. The COVID-19 pandemic has many seeking flexible short-term leasing at co-working spaces with physical distancing protocols. Many co-working spaces provide added benefits such as working alongside other members of a startup community, conference meeting spaces, mailboxes, and event space.
The rise over the past couple of years of specialized spaces for other industries means San Antonio founders can now rent space in commercial kitchens, film and video studios, bioscience wet lab and manufacturing facilities, and makerspaces and prototyping places across San Antonio.
Here are the startup spaces currently available in San Antonio:
- 500 SIXTH —a collaborative working environment in midtown San Antonio at 500 Sixth Street
- 10BitWorks—a makerspace on the South Side
- Abundant Business Coworking—executive office spaces a mile from the San Antonio International Airport
- Alamo City Studios—film and video production studio
- Alamo Kitchens—a culinary kitchen co-working space and rentable commercial kitchen
- Babes Support Babes offers co-space memberships at its North Central San Antonio location
- CANopener Labs— provides prototyping services and co-working space for inventors and entrepreneurs
- Centre for Emergency Health Services (Spring Branch) — a cadaver lab for biotech founders to test medical devices
- Common Desk — opening a downtown location
- Co-Op Kitchen—a culinary kitchen co-working space and rentable commercial kitchen
- Crown Scientific — offers specialized bioscience wet lab resources for biomedical entrepreneurs
- Cubes at the Quonset — a casual, pet-friendly, techie co-working near the Pearl
- Geekdom — a downtown technology startup hub and co-working community
- Key Coworking — a co-working space near Olmos Basin
- Kinected Coworking Office Spaces — located in Hallmark University in the Medical Center area.
- Legacy Office Centers — executive suites and virtual offices at I-10 West and Loop 410
- LiftOff—small co-working spaces supported by the microlender LiftFund to help small businesses get started
- Maestro Entrepreneur Center—offers office space, a professional kitchen, industrial, and warehouse space for entrepreneurs
- Moade Center—coworking and office suites near the airport and in Fair Oaks
- Office Box—co-working located in Boerne
- Office Evolution—co-working located in North San Antonio in Stone Oak
- Paradox—co-working located near the San Antonio airport
- Parish—an artists’ community on the near Westside
- Pearl Cowork—a community orientated flexible workspace within the historic Pearl Brewery district
- Project Cowork — located close to the airport
- Regus — class-A executive suites and meeting spaces at multiple locations around town
- San Antonio Area Foundation—meeting and event space for nonprofits
- San Antonio Technology Center—office spaces for companies, startups, and nonprofits in the Medical Center area
- Splash Coworking—Based in San Marcos, Texas
- SUCCESS Space will open in late 2022
- VelocityTX—office space in its Eastside headquarters
- VenturePoint—flexible offices in four locations across San Antonio
- Venture X—entrepreneur and professional offices in the Stone Oak area and on West Avenue
- Watershed Idea Foundry— offers specialized bioscience wet lab resources for biomedical entrepreneurs
- Werkplaats—executive suites at the Dominion
Networking Groups
San Antonio is experiencing growth in its startup networking groups with a STEM focus. Many meetups with sizable membership (500+) are listed below.
- Geekdom
- The Entrepreneurial World
- Women in Robotics
- EnventureSA is for early-stage scientists in need of entrepreneurial science career mentoring
- San Antonio Technology Center
- San Antonio New Tech Meetup
- Lisk Blockchain Meetup
- Bitcoin Trading Meetup
- Alamo City Python Meetup
- Data Science Meetup
- Tech Talent South Meetup
- Open Web Application Security Project (OWASP) Meetup
- UI-UX Meetup
- Learn to Code Meetup
- Alamo Inventors Meetup
- Greater Gaming Society
- International Game Developers Association
Supporting Infrastructure
Supporters and Advocates
- Bexar County Small Business & Entrepreneurship Department oversees the Small, Minority and Women-Owned Business Enterprise (SMWVBE) and Disadvantaged Business Enterprise (DBE) programs.
- Bexar County Innovation Fund is used to accelerate the growth of our digital information technology sector by funding recruitment, expansion, talent development competitions, professional and technical training, and brand-building initiatives.
- BioMed SA is a non-profit organization dedicated to the growth of the healthcare and bioscience industry by providing resources to the industry in San Antonio, convening collaboration and action groups, and raising the industry’s visibility nationally and beyond.
- CyberSecurity San Antonio (San Antonio Chamber of Commerce) serves as the hub for all things cyber in the San Antonio region, including military and government affairs; talent, education and workforce development; global engagement; sustainability; and innovation and economic development.
- Cyber Texas Foundation supports cybersecurity professionals and hosts an annual conference in San Antonio.
- Enventure San Antonio is a nonprofit organization designed to help biomedical professionals discover and connect to entrepreneurial career options.
- TechBloc is a technology industry advocacy organization in San Antonio.
- The City of San Antonio Small Business Office leads the City’s efforts to grow and develop small businesses.
- The Health Cell was formed by and for San Antonio’s biotechnology, medical, military and academic leadership to promote professional development and collaboration across the City’s health sector.
Lawyers
Eventually, every founder will need a lawyer who understands a startup’s unique requirements. Startup legal services in San Antonio include:
- M&A lawyer Matthew Duke works with startups on their mergers and acquisitions transactions.
- Tech lawyer David Jones works with many startups (tech startups, as well as tech legal issues): DJ Law PLLC
- San Antonio lawyer Jose Padilla specializes in startups from formation to funding to acquisition or IPO: Padilla Law PLLC
- Patents lawyer Samar Shah (specializing in STEM startups): Shah IP Law PLLC
- San Antonio lawyer Stephanie Chandler (works with companies in early stages through significant liquidity events, technology licensing, commercialization): Stephanie Chandler at Jackson Walker
- Langley & Banack has a group of cybersecurity, data protection, and privacy attorneys who specialize in helping clients minimize a company’s risks from a data breach
Funding
Confused by what all the funding terms like “pre-seed,” “Series A,” and “Series C” mean?? Check out this useful primer: Series A, B, C Funding: How It Works, Definitions, Averages
There are over 50 San Antonio-based investors listed in the Alamo Angel’s investor directory. Other venture funds, investors, and possible sources of funding such as loans in San Antonio are listed below.
- Active Capital is based in Texas, but will invest in founders across the U.S.
- Alamo Angels
- Beam Founder Network
- Bexar County Economic Development
- Bexar County Innovation Fund
- Boerne Kendall County Angel Network launched in early 2021 in the nearby Texas Hill Country.
- Central Texas Angel Network
- Contour Ridge
- Dry Line Partners is a private equity firm
- Dura Software buys and operates software companies for the long-term
- Fountainhead Investors
- Fraser-McCombs Capital
- Geekdom Fund
- Geekdom Community Fund
- HOLT Ventures
- InCube Ventures
- LiftFund
- Live Oak Ventures Texas early-stage venture capital fund
- MGV Capital Group
- Greater SATX (formerly known as the San Antonio Economic Development Center)
- San Antonio Economic Development Foundation
- San Antonio Economic Development Department
- San Antonio Medical Military Innovation Fund invests seed funding into medical military innovators.
- Scaleworks Venture Finance Fund
- Soilworks Natural Capital invests, operates, and incubates regenerative agriculture companies.
- South Highland Ventures offers a full suite of capital investment, M&A, advisory, and financial services.
- Targeted Technology Funds
- Tectonic Ventures
- Texas Intrepid Ventures invests in promising military medicine startups.
- USAA
- See also Silicon Hills Lawyer’s website listing of investors interested in Texas startups.
Other funding sources include loans for small businesses. Be sure to read Margot Slossom’s guest post on the pros and cons of startup financing sources and Jarod Angehr’s guest post on SAFE notes and revenue sharing.
There are also excellent online resources from the Small Business Administration, grants for small businesses, and financing sources specifically for minority-owned startups.
More Startup Resources: Podcasts, Checklists, and Books
STEM- and startup-centric podcasts are emerging in San Antonio. Here are some podcasts and radio shows to get you started.
- EnventureSA interviews scientists who are driving biomedical innovation in San Antonio.
- Technology Today is Southwest Research Institute’s podcast on SwRI’s advanced science developments
- Obey Your Strengths podcast from Geekdom Media focuses on how to leverage your StrengthsFinder results.
- The SA Tech Radio show features interviews with local tech founders and leaders.
- The B Libre podcast is focused on Bitcoin cryptocurrency.
- The Wild West Crypto Show is all about cryptocurrency.
- TXBiobytes science podcast from Texas Biomed shares the latest from the research institution.
- The South Texas Center for Emerging Infectious Diseases’ science podcast Microtalk covers infectious disease.
- Red Wing’s Oil and Gas HSE Podcast covers operations and health, safety and environmental — or HSE — issues in the oil and gas industry.
- devmap is a podcast for junior developers.
- Check out the past episodes from Jungle Disk‘s CEO Bret Piatt interviews of local experts and founders about cybersecurity on Cyber Talk Radio.
- Check out the past episodes from The Brand Brothers podcast from Geekdom Media shares branding and marketing expertise.
More guides for startups
- Product Hunt has launched Startups.fyi, a curated directory of free tools and resources for startup founders and aspiring entrepreneurs. The website currently has 50+ tools that range from scheduling software to design tools and famous pitch decks.
- Interested in working at a startup? Here’s a Crash Guide to Startup Careers
- For founders needing to learn how to approach investors, here’s a due diligence checklist from the Central Texas Angel Network website.
- Don’t forget to read books at every stage of your startup. This reading list offers great choices from your first harried days onward.
- Need to develop your pitch deck? Pitch Deck Workshop April 8, 2020 by Iris Gonzalez How to Create Your 1st Pitch Deck
- Need help with remote onboarding? Use our checklist: Remote onboarding webinar for Geekdom May 15, 2020 by Iris Gonzalez
Photo of downtown San Antonio taken by Jon Ryan Garcia