Startup Resources in San Antonio

CONTENT
  1. Speakers Lists
  2. Helpful Articles
  3. Entrepreneurial Events
  4. Startups Listing
  5. Student STEM Education and Entrepreneurship Resources
  6. Startup Programs
  7. Industry Education and Training
  8. Spaces for Startups
  9. Networking Groups
  10. Supporting Infrastructure
    1. Supporters and Advocates
    2. Lawyers
    3. Funding
  11. Podcasts, Checklists, and Books
  12. Even More Guides

LAST UPDATED January 1, 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

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

School-specific programs

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).

Industry Education and Training

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) has a cadaver lab for biotech founders to test medical devices.
  • 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—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
  • 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
  • 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.

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.

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.

More guides for startups

Photo of downtown San Antonio taken by Jon Ryan Garcia