Austinpreneur Capital Factory

Will Edwards leads a hybrid rocket engine design and manufacturing company called Firehawk Aerospace. Firehawk is improving the way we develop engines for rocket propelled systems. As a Forbes 30 Under 30, Will collaborates daily with entrepreneurs, investors, and engineers, who are passionate about making space safer, affordable, and more accessible. In this episode we discuss motivating employees, working with the department of defense and building a rocket company across Texas.
About Firehawk:
Designs and manufactures safe, reliable, and cost effective high performance rocket engines.$21M+ raised in venture capital with investors including Raytheon, Draper Associates, Stellar Ventures, Victorum Capital and Capital Factory.Funded directly by U.S. Congress via Presidential Budget

Chuck Gordon, CEO of Storable, shares his story moving to Austin for Capital Factory, raising ~$50M in venture capital before selling his company in private equity buyout deals twice. Chuck, and his co-founder Mario Feghali, have remained the top executives at Storable through the entire journey. As one of the first five startups to join Capital Factory, Storable (fmr SpareFoot) is at the tip of the spear of the latest generation of Austin tech startups. 
This episode was hosted by Nick Spiller and edited by Aaron Handwerker. 

Our guest for this episode is Yousef Kassim, CEO & Founder of Easy Expunctions, who is an attorney creating justice through technology. By organizing and normalizing thousands of criminal history databases, Easy Expunctions is building a platform to help individuals pursue expunctions on their record without an attorney. Tune in as we cover the following topics:
Yousef's inspiration for Easy Expunctions that came from doing his own expunctionDisrupting the Legal Industry with TechnologyTapping into Austin as a startup in San AntonioAbout Easy Expunctions
Makes clearing your arrest record easy and for a fraction of the cost of hiring a lawyer.Processing more expunctions than anyone else in Texas.~$8M in venture funding raisedWinner of Capital Factory's $100,000 San Antonio Investment Challenge in 2018About Capital Factory
Partner to 25+ F500 enterprises on their innovation efforts.Most active seed fund in Texas investing in 1 startup per week.Center of Gravity for Entrepreneurs in Texas with locations across the state.This podcast is produced Capital Factory, hosted by Nick Spiller and edited by Aaron Handwerker.

Gain insights to the entrepreneurial mind of Uri Levine who is Co-Founder of Waze, Moovit and Author of Fall in Love with the Problem, Not the Solution. Uri shares ideas from his new book during our interview at Capital Factory House during SXSW 2023. The conversation ranges from conducting customer discovery to finding product-market-fit and concludes with Uri's fundraising tips. 
About Fall in Love with the Problem, Not the Solution
A handbook for entrepreneurs written by Uri Levine who is co-founder of two unicorns, Waze and Moovit.Inside look at the creation and sale of Waze and his second unicorn, Moovit, revealing the formula that drove those companies to compete with industry veterans and giants alike.Topics include deciding when to sell, going global, making scale-up decisions, reaching product market fit, understanding your user, raising funding, disrupting “broken” markets, firing and hiringAbout Capital Factory
Producer of the Austinpreneur podcast.Partner to 25+ F500 enterprises on their innovation efforts.Most active seed fund in Texas investing in 1 startup per week.Center of Gravity for Entrepreneurs in Texas with locations across the state.This podcast is produced Capital Factory, hosted by Nick Spiller and edited by Aaron Handwerker. 

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.