For some Texas startups, the holidays came a little early with new funding. Also, Houston’s Capital Royalty announces a management transition. Here’s the latest innovation news from Texas.
—Datical, a technology startup based in Austin, TX, said Monday it has raised $3 million in Series A funding.
The money will be used by Datical to expand development and marketing of its database change management product, Datical DB, which allows companies to digitize what is now a manual process to update applications that run on databases.
“Instead of putting out a new release of an application once or twice a year, you’re now expected to do it once or twice a week,” says Daniel Nelson, Datical’s co-founder and CEO. “Until you got to that velocity of change, you didn’t need to automate it.”
The startup, which was founded in 2012 and has 16 employees, is targeting customers in financial services, insurance, and retail, he added. Mercury Fund in Houston led the round, with Austin Ventures participating.
—The Dallas Angel Network has closed on a $1.1 million fund to invest in North Texas startups. It has also made its first investment, about $340,000, in ImageVision, an Anna, TX, company that helps companies make money by automating the recognition and tagging of user-generated data.
The angel network was founded in 2010 and is made up of more than 30 investors.
—Charles Tate, the founder and chairman of Houston’s Capital Royalty, announced Friday that Nate Hukill will become president and chairman of the firm’s investment committee.
Tate will be chairman and a member on the investment committee, and “remain fully active in all aspects” of the firm through the expiration of its Fund III investment product, which is expected to occur in five years. In a statement, Tate said that Hukill played a crucial role in the firm’s development. “Capital Royalty will be in good hands under his stewardship,” he said.
Hukill joined Capital Royalty in 2009 from Highland Capital Management, where he had managed about $4.5 billion in alternative assets, primarily in healthcare investments.
