Austinpreneur

This episode peaks into how the United States Navy is working with startups to drive innovation in their capabilities, processes and culture. We recorded this episode back in August of 2023 at Capital Factory's Fed Supernova. Our guests include Graham Chynoweth and Diana Teel from the Navy's innovation network, NavalX. Also on the show today is Carol Ann Logue, who leads South Florida's efforts to build a supportive startup ecosystem around defense innovation programs, including NavalX. The conversation uncovers new avenues into the department of defense for startups. These networks and non-dilutive funding sources are changing the game for hard tech startups looking to unlock early milestones, even if they have a primarily commercial target market. Listen now and you just may be the next startups to partner up with the DoD.

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The Chairman of the Central Texas Angel Network, Gary Forni, is our guest for this episode of Austinpreneur. The conversation was recorded for a live Austin Startup Week audience and spans Gary's deep experience in technology starting in Silicon Valley as a billion-dollar business builder for Intel. Since moving to Austin, Texas over 20 years ago, Gary has invested in, mentored and managed a wide range of ventures including ListingSpark, ScaleFactor, TuffWerx and HeatGenie.

Gary has been a member of the Central Texas Angel Network for over a decade as an investor. In 2023, Gary accepted the invitation to become CTAN's Board Chair and lead the organization moving into its next phase of growth.

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On this episode of Austinpreneur presented by SXSW, we share a conversation recorded at Austin Startup Week with Claire Hansen, a recently promoted partner at Firebrand Ventures. Claire is a leader in the Austin startup community and has worked alongside startups and investors here since 2015. Claire's first role in venture was at Capital Factory and from there led the Central Texas Angel Network before working for the Army Application Lab inside Army Futures Command. Claire received her MA in Organizational Communication from Texas A&M University and a BA in the same subject from Pepperdine.

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Listen to this Austinpreneur conversation presented by SXSW on the cybersecurity implications of artificial intelligence and machine learning with special guest Chris Sestito, CEO of HiddenLayer. Chris' background is in cybersecurity threat research, detection and response. When he was at Cyclance, Chris encountered one of the first adversarial machine learning attacks which inspired his vision for HiddenLayer. HiddeLayer announced a $50M round of funding in September of this year. This session was recorded for a live audience at Austin Startup Week in November 2023.

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Presented by SXSW, this episode of Austinpreneur features special guest Matthew Iommi who is the CEO of Fetii. Matthew and his co-founder started Fetii as undergraduates at Texas A&M University. After going through Y-Combinator, Fetii launched in Austin and joined Capital Factory. Fetii's group rideshare service has taken off and quickly become a beacon of Austin's nightlife and social engagements. This episode was recorded for an audience of students in Longhorn Startup at The University of Texas at Austin.

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Get insights from the inventor of Ethernet, Dr. Bob Metcalfe, in this episode of Austinpreneur. In this conversation, Metcalfe talks about the early days of Silicon Valley, how he crafted "Metcalfe's Law" as well as the latest revolution in artificial intelligence. Joshua Baer, CEO and Founder of Capital Factory, interviews Metcalfe in this episode recorded for students of Longhorn Startup at The University of Texas at Austin.

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On a tiny hill in Afghanistan, John Goodson asked "Why does nothing work?" for the last time and set out to create the future of autonomous drones. As a U.S. soldier in the field, John went from excited to deploy drones to not even considering it due to the inadequacies of the drone platform he was equipped with. Today, John is CEO & Founder of Darkhive where they are building lightweight, autonomous drones for defense. The company is fueled by $14M of goverment funding and a fresh $5M from venture investors including Capital Factory.

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On this episode of Austinpreneur we chat with Kristy Alballero who is Co-Founder of IOOGO. Kristy received three degrees from The University of Texas at Dallas which led to a successful career in a series of product ownership roles. In 2017, Kristy co-founded IOOGO to help ease the pain of tax and accounting for small businesses and startups. In their first year, IOOGO helped 12,000 people file taxes and has grown from there. Kristy is deeply embedded in Capital Factory's community with IOOGO being a portfolio company and key sponsor of our top events like Austin Startup Week and Fed Supernova.

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One of the world's best venture capitalists in the world is our guest for this episode of Austinpreneur. Bill Gurley has been a General Partner at Benchmark Capital since 1998 where he led investments in Uber, GrubHub, OpenTable, Stich Fix and Next Door among others. Recently Bill retired from new funds at Benchmark and moved to Austin, Texas. He also earned his MBA at The University of Texas at Austin. Sign up for the best Austinpreneur updates at capitalfactory.com/podcast