$200,000 for $25,000 investments each. We’re similar to Capital Factory [in Austin] but more focused on co-working space. We don’t have an accelerator track at Geekdom. I’m not sure if we’ll have another cloud program here, now that Techstars is in Austin. The fund is a source of pre-seed money, to push people over the fence to work on their startups in a full-time capacity instead of moonlighting it. We also think the fund is a bit of a stamp of approval for some San Antonio companies. It makes bringing in other investors a little easier; it gives them some pre-validation.
The process is a monthly application. Once a month, a review board will look at applications. The board isn’t those who put in the money; they are C-level executives at Rackspace who want to back companies. We have angel investors or startup executives review the applications. There is 10 minutes of Q&A for teams that have applied for funding.
X: How many companies have received investments?
CW: We have invested in 14 companies, enabling them to work on their ideas. I highly doubt that that would have happened if the fund didn’t exist. We’ve had a part in [helping] 14 more San Antonio startups be more active. Among our portfolio, they’ve raised more than $1.5 million beyond what Geekdom has put into their companies. This means these companies are continuing on and building a community.
X: Are there specific sectors you are targeting, or just that they be based in San Antonio?
CW: The main criteria is that they are San Antonio startups. The fund is there to cultivate and promote the San Antonio ecosystem. We don’t focus on any specific vertical. Recently, we added a review board member in the medtech space so we started to see a few medtech companies apply.
X: Tell me about the notable companies you’ve funded?
CW: One of the companies is called ParLevel Systems, which makes vending-machine inventory management software and hardware. They were part of Techstars Cloud’s second-year class. They’ve since gone on to raise about $1 million. Another is SportyBird, which has developed software for soccer coaches related to team organization tools and game stats.
X: How did you get involved with Geekdom? Tell me about your background in startups?
CW: I became really interested in entrepreneurship and business at Trinity. I started to get involved in three-day startup programs—the first one in San Antonio—and I helped run others after that. That’s where I met Jason Seats [the current head of Techstars Austin who used to lead Techstars Cloud in San Antonio]. I also run two other events: I co-organize San Antonio New Tech Meetup and San Antonio Pitch.
With my engineering background, I still have that itch for the technical side of stuff. I and two or three other co-founders are going to start a company related to 3-D imaging, a 3-D camera for medical applications.
