Alex Gras

Raising capital is the key step for both startups and companies expanding, entering new markets, or growing rapidly. At SeatonHill Partners, PitchBook helps us identify funding sources and understand the specific details of the transactions these sources have recently closed. Is there a possible match? Should we reach out? Knowing the answers to these questions makes all the difference. See this 2-minute video: https://lnkd.in/gSVkMhng

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Cost-effective geothermal energy has the ability to fully transition and decarbonize our grids and industrial systems - in the near term! We believe the team and technology at XGS Energy will realize this vision and we couldn't be happier to be working with them on a geothermal-powered reality.

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🧬 This week's Austin Bio + Health Roundup highlights significant data trends, my stance on covering funding announcements, new partnerships, and action across the Texas Bio Triangle. 🧬 💰 Funding: The Way I Plan to Cover Funding Announcements You may have seen reports of a local Bio & Health startup’s funding round through an SEC report filing. While some outlets have covered this, my position is not to. I prefer to support our builders directly rather than trolling the filings for scoops. There is plenty of real investigative journalism that our city would be well served by if that is where they focused. Remember I am not a journalist and I am not the media. When the company is ready to announce their round officially, I’ll gladly shout it to the rooftops. 📊 Data Peter Walker at Carta reports that in 2017, Biopharma and Medical Devices captured just under 10% of all VC dollars. By 2023, this figure rose to 17.7%, and in Q1 2024, it reached 24%. The overarching tailwinds favor our sector and region with trends towards Bio & Health and the physical & digital intersection. Energy and hardware, two other sector blossoming in Central Texas, also saw similar share gains. 🤝 M&A and Partnerships Sensi.AI, a 24/7 senior care intelligence agent, is partnering with Caring Senior Service to deploy SensiAI’s platform in Caring’s 50 locations across the US. This partnership allows seniors a better opportunity to age gracefully in their homes. 🚩 Texas Bio Triangle BioMedSA is hosting an event called Women in Bioscience, Thursday June 20th. It’s designed to connect and empower women in the bioscience industry across Central Texas, and features Randi Brosterman Hutchens discussing "Building your Personal Board." Find the link to the event in the comments. Houston-based Lokum, a staffing solution to connect clinicians and clinical staff to health care facilities, has raised a $700K pre-seed round. Congrats Ayoade (Joy) Ademuyewo on the raise. What’s Next? #AustinNext #LifeSciences #Healthcare #Biotechnology

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🚀 New Episode Alert: Investor Connect with Gary Forni, Chairman of CTAN 🚀 Join host Hall T. Martin for an insightful conversation with Gary Forni, the visionary Chairman of the Central Texas Angel Network (CTAN). With a storied career in technology and venture capital, Gary has been instrumental in shaping the startup ecosystem in Central Texas. 📅 Listen now: https://ow.ly/Po6Q50RBUJt 🔹 What to Expect: Gary's journey from Intel Corp to leading one of the most active angel groups in the U.S. An inside look at CTAN's investment strategy and how they're nurturing the next wave of disruptive tech startups. Expert advice on overcoming challenges in angel investing and adapting to economic changes. 📈 Under Gary's leadership, CTAN has invested over $129 million in 215 companies, driving innovation and economic growth. Learn how this network supports entrepreneurs with capital, mentoring, and more. 🎧 Tune in to "Investor Connect" for more expert insights into the investment landscape. Don’t miss it! #InvestorConnect #AngelInvesting #Startups #Innovation

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Good signs for growth, which in turn will help corporate earnings and stocks. A stronger-than-expected earnings season has also helped propel stocks higher, with 77% of companies beating estimates, compared to 67% historically.

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At Software Legacy Partners we help founders of vertical market software companies implement systems of execution We always start by reviewing a checklist John D. Rockefeller put in place more than 100 years ago when founding a little company named ExxonMobil. Here is a summary of those habits that every company who aspires to be enduringly successful should have a version of: 1. The executive team is healthy and aligned 2. That alignment is focused on the #1 thing that needs to be accomplished this quarter to move the company forward 3. There is a regular communication rhythm established that allows information to move through the organization accurately 4. Every work stream has a person assigned to it with accountability for ensuring goals are met 5. Ongoing employee feedback is collected to identify obstacles and opportunities 6. Reporting and analysis of customer feedback is as frequent and accurate as financial data 7. Core values and purpose are alive in the organization 8. Employees can articulate the key components of the company's strategy accurately 9. All employees can answer quantitatively whether they had a bad or good week 10. The company's plans and performance are visible to everyone. Having at least this set of healthy habits in place at your company will accelerate its ability to execute. Over the coming weeks, we'll dive deeper into each one and layer in our learnings from helping many founders and ceo's of #VSaaS companies apply them.

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Thrilled to announce Next Frontier Capital's investment in Hoonify Technologies Inc. Andrew Clark, Victor Kuhns, and team bring decades of HPC experience from Sandia National Laboratories. Hoonify is NFC's first New Mexico investment! Hoonify’s innovation began by placing supercomputers at the edge – in offices, academic institutions, and homes – and liberating them from the traditional high hurdles of supercomputing. Providing immediate and personal access to this technology improves customer performance by up to 300%, achieving higher efficiencies with lower costs compared with alternative solutions. Currently, Hoonify serves U.S. Government and commercial companies in the aerospace and defense and biotech markets that demand accelerated results for their consequential modeling and simulation, artificial intelligence (AI), and machine learning (ML) workloads. With $3.75m in new funding, Hoonify provides clients supercomputing capabilities typically only available to a select few, will use the new funding to fuel additional growth for product enhancements and to position its software platform, TurbOS for entry into additional markets. TurbOS runs on any Intel CPUs or NVIDIA GPUs to enable faster computing performance through parallel computing - using the customer’s existing hardware or options including Hoonify’s all-in-one Cub Desktop Supercomputer. Let's go!

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How does Austin look when comparing share of VC dollars across stages? The short answer: Pretty consistent with our overall position. The long answer: A surprise or two. No shock that the Bay Area dominates from Seed to Series C, capturing between 30% and 45% of market share. Austin ranks between 5th and 7th place, holding a 3% to 4% share across each stage, matching our overall position of 5th or 6th depending on the dataset. Notably, Austin's highest rank is at the Series C stage, which I wasn’t expecting. My guess is this is less about a surge in Austin’s late-stage investments and more about Seattle’s drop-off at this stage. Here’s how venture dollars in Austin are distributed by stage: Seed: 12% Series A: 32% Series B: 33% Series C: 23% For comparison, the Bay Area's distribution is: Seed: 12% Series A: 26% Series B: 32% Series C: 30% Given the size of the rounds, it's logical that later stages command a larger share of total capital. To ascend to the next tier, Austin needs more companies to have both the demand for late stage funding and be able to secure it. 🙏 A big thanks to Peter Walker and Carta for continually providing such insightful data. What’s Next?

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