Physical space changes for 2021
Coworking and meetups have been significantly impacted by COVID-19 and the limitations on working in offices, gathering groups of people, and travel. Until they bounce back, we’re closing our Dallas event space and one of our four floors in Austin. We’re still opening the Center for Autonomous Robotics in Austin and our presence at The Ion in Houston in 2021!
A few months ago we closed the 16th floor in Austin Centre (one of four floors we had in the building) and this week we closed our space at The Centrum in Dallas.
In Austin, we will continue to operate our event space on the 1st floor (Voltron, Devvie, Astroboy), the coworking space on the 5th floor (the Star Wars floor), and the Center for Defense Innovation on the 8th floor. Only the 16th floor is closing. We are still launching the Center for Autonomous Robotics with Guinn Partners. We don’t expect any other changes in Austin.
In Dallas, we have partnered with the UT Dallas Venture Development Center to provide discounted office space to our members while we are in transition. Right now there is very little demand for office space due to COVID but we expect to have a new plan in place to announce to members by the time they are ready to start coming back into the office again. We aren’t going anywhere.
In Houston, we continue to work closely with The Ion and look forward to our presence there in 2021. The Ion is the most exciting entrepreneurial community in Texas bringing together Rice University, Capital Factory, DivInc, NASA, and many others on a 16-acre campus in midtown Houston, right between the Texas Medical Center and downtown.
Here are some key takeaways:
- Dallas is a critical pillar of the Texas Startup Manifesto. Last year we recruited almost as many startups from Dallas as we did from Austin! We plan on re-opening at The Centrum or another location after it is safe again and still have six full-time employees in Dallas.
- Capital Factory is still going to have a presence at The Ion in Houston. Houston is a critical part of the Texas Startup Manifesto too and The Ion is the perfect partner for a post-COVID world. We have two full-time employees in Houston and expect that team to grow in 2021.
- The Capital Factory community is stronger than ever. COVID regulations are preventing us from meeting in person, but our Slack channel is buzzing with activity and people are booking office hours on Union.vc every day. We’re making dozens of investor introductions every week and our startups are raising big rounds of funding. More startups have already joined the Capital Factory Accelerator in 2020 than in 2019.
