Austinpreneur Capital Factory

Katherine Allen, CEO & Founder of Flo Recruit, is our guest for this episode of Austinpreneur. We trace Katherine'e startup journey from her first week on campus at The University of Texas. After starting Flo during college at UT Austin, Katherine and her co-founder Atreya went all in on in-person recruiting. COVID struck a couple months later. Listen now to hear how Katherine led Flo through the pandemic to emerge an industry leader in legal recruiting. 
Austinpreneur is hosted by Nick Spiller and edited by Aaron Handwerker. Sign up for email updates on new shows here.
About Flo Recruit:
Maker of recruiting management software for law firms.$3.3M raised in venture capital from investors including LiveOak VP, Teamworthy Ventures and Capital Factory. Started while founders were undergraduates at The University of Texas at Austin.About Capital Factory:
Center of Gravity for Entrepreneurs in Texas with locations across the state.Most active seed fund in Texas investing in 1 startup per week.Partner to 25+ F500 enterprises on their innovation efforts.Producer of the Austinpreneur podcast.

Jeff Cardenas, CEO of Apptronik, is our guest for this episode about creating the ultimate tool for humans - humanoid robots. We discuss how robots can help humans free their time to do things we’d rather spend our time on. Before discussing Apptronik, we dive into Jeff’s entrepreneurial journey. Jeff led an entrepreneurial life up to Apptronik including a previous venture in political technology that went through Capital Factory. Take a listen and get a glimpse into the future where humans and robots work side by side.
Austinpreneur is hosted by Nick Spiller and edited by Aaron Handwerker.
About Apptronik:
Maker of world leading humanoid robot, ApolloPartnered with NASA, U.S. Army, SOCCOM and other DOD agencies fueling development.$25M+ raised in venture capital from Grit Ventures, Capital Factory and recently Terex. Spun out of Human Centered Robotics Lab at The University of Texas. About Capital Factory: 
Center of Gravity for Entrepreneurs in Texas with locations across the state.Most active seed fund in Texas investing in 1 startup per week. Partner to 25+ F500 enterprises on their innovation efforts.Producer of the Austinpreneur podcast.

With multiple days of programming planned at Capital Factory during SXSW, you can imagine the impact on the AFWERX team when the city of Austin understandably canceled large gatherings due to concerns surrounding the spread of COVID-19. Despite the sudden setback, the team quickly adapted and got to work on re-imagining Spark Collider into an 8-hour live-streamed event. With the event to begin in 48 hours, the AFWERX team with support from Capital Factory staff were able to create an event that attracted 5,000 virtual viewers- which was 4x the number of people expected to attend the actual in-person event. Learn how the event all came together from Capital Factory's Senior Programs Manager, Maryann Alspaugh, and AFWERX members Adam Welch and Tony Perez. 

Founded on the vision of shaping the future of computing, David Zakariaie and his team at Senseye are building the way humans and computers interact with each other. Founded in 2015, Senseye provides products that connect the user to the tech and future-proofs your business in order to keep your assets safe and secure. David sat down with Gordon Daugherty, President of Capital Factory, to chat about the cutting-edge tech Senseye is working on and they're unique sensory interface technology that is directly linked to the brain from a computer via the eye.

In 2020 our word of the year is “Houston” and our goal is to achieve the same scale and synergies we have in Dallas with a unique Houston angle to it. On January 29th, Capital Factory official announced that it has merged with Station Houston and will be the first member of The Ion with Rice University and Houston Exponential! Gordon Daugherty traveled to Houston to chat with Gabi Rowe, Executive Director and CEO of The Ion to talk about what the merger means for the Houston Startup Ecosystem and a preview of what's to come with the Ion's new building.

In the early 2000s, Justin Siegel and his best friend didn't want to work for other people anymore and saw an opportunity for making mobile games. Fast-forward 20 years, Justin is now the co-owner of NRG Esports— a massive global esports organization with teams in Call of Duty and Overwatch that include investors such as Jennifer Lopez, Shaquille O'Neal, and Michael Strahan. Find out how Justin went from creating mobile games to earn some extra cash to helping run one of the most popular esports organizations in the world.