TEN's Startup Funding Report for Fourth Quarter, 2013

 Here's our latest report on startup funding in the state of Texas for Q4, 2012.  You can see the full report here. 

The Texas Entrepreneur Networks Startup Funding Report represents private investments made into Texas startup and early stage companies for the fourth quarter of 2012.  This report includes registered investments as well as the business entity filings for the state.  There is also a report from Gust, (www.gust.com) that highlights dealflow in the Texas-based angel networks.  Trends are noted as well as a forecast for early stage investments.  Also, the Texas Entrepreneur Network Startup Index which measures the health of startup businesses is shown.

TEN Startup Index

For Q4, 2012, the TEN Startup Index remained at 43, the same as the previous quarter but up from 30 over the year ago quarter.

Trends in Sectors

Overall the leading category for funding sector was Biotechnology at $72M with 16 deals, followed by Other at $67M comprised of 34 deals and Semiconductor at $59M with 2 deals, and Healthcare at $23M with 20 deals. 

Trends in Regions

The Central Texas region came in first with 48 deals worth $139M in funding, followed by the North Texas region with 35 deals worth $92M.  Following that is the Gulf Coast region with 20 deals worth $35M, the South region with 4 deals worth $28M, and the West region with 2 deals worth $2M.

TxEN Funded Companies

Startups seeking funding who participated in the TxEN program raised over $1.75M in the 4th quarter of 2012.

Texas Startup Investment Trends

Crowdfunding skyrockets in attention and traction with the passage of the JOBS Act of 2012 in April.  While the laws are still under review, there is an explosion in the number of crowdfunding sites coming online. According to Massolution, there are over 520 crowdfunding websites today.   Equity-based sites are growing the fastest at 30%.

Business Filings

Business filings of new entities in the state of Texas in the 4th quarter added 29,861 new entities which is a 20% increase over the number of new entities filed in Q3, 2012.

GUST Data

In the fourth quarter of 2012, there were 1021 funding applications forwarded to investor groups in Texas. Texas remained in fourth place in the top 10 list of deal-making US states.  The leading industry seeking funding was Web Services at 9% of the deals.