Texas Emerging Technology Fund
Tonight I attended the Investment Symposium put on by the Texas Emerging Technology Fund. Your state government at work handing out money to start up companies. They featured about a dozen companies who were awarded anywhere from $250K to $3.5 Million. Out of the companies that received awards I think that I would consider investing in one or two at most. None of these companies built anything physical, not a manufactured product in the bunch.
As the process was explained to me it takes about a year (sometimes two or three) to complete, and you have to have involvement of a University. In addition the state ownership of your company is based on your next round of funding, so if you do not need further funding you are screwed.
I was invited by someone who thought this could be a good way to get more funding for my company, RDSeismic. LLC. Well I am afraid that we do not fit the framework for this state program. My problem is that we have already self-funded and have a working product. I do not need a team from a local University, and if I had any funding (for production parts to fill current orders or to hire support engineers) I would not need any more as we would be cash flowing very well from that point on. So companies like mine that can provide immediate jobs in Texas are not what the government is looking for.
I will be interested in seeing how the State investment turns out in a few years as they are presently investing in over one hundred companies. What do you think our return will be?
