Making Meaningful Connections

Funded House is the premier 'Activation' matching later stage startups with serious investors. Funded House is a physical private lounge that produces panels and live podcasts and acts as a networking platform for vetted VIPs. Since 2019 Funded House, a partnership between Marc Nathan and Elijah May of the Experience Firm, has connected hundreds of investors and startups.

The VIP Insider's Guide is a comprehensive list of private events happening during the SXSW conference. The Insider's Guide is designed specifically for Business Developers (as opposed to artists and engineers) to assist them in discovering appropriate events in the vast sea of events during the Spring festival season in Austin.

OpenCoffee is a casual coffee meetup for technologists and startups launched in Houston in 2007. The Houston group has since morphed into Cup of Joey, led by Joey Sanchez. Damon Clinkscales leads OpenCoffee Austin since 2009 with Marc coming on board as a co-host in 2014. We host events on the first and third Thursdays of the month.

Wake Up! CPG is the largest meetup for the Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG) in Texas, launched in 2016. We gather CPG brand founders, investors, and service providers on the fourth Thursday of every month for lively conversations about the industry.

Similar to Wake Up! CPG, Turn Up! is a Happy Hour and vendor market for local CPG brands co-hosted by Bill Murphy of Willpower events

Consumer VC Live Summits are high-end in-person conferences focused on emerging CPG brands and the investors who fund them. The events are co-produced by Mike Gelb of The Consumer VC podcast and newsletter and Lindsay Lightman.

TexasCPG is 501-c-3 non-profit dedicated to providing resources to emerging CPG brands starting or coming to Texas. This statewide initiative is designed to showcase local city events and promote professional services.

The Texas-Squared Startup newsletter ran for nine years with over 450+ issues published every Sunday morning as a weekly digest for news headlines, blogs, and podcasts for tech startups. Texas-Boxed is a monthly digest for the CPG industry.

Expo Exposed is a comprehensive 'side event' guide targeted at attendees of the largest CPG conference in North America, New Hope's Natural Food Expo West in Anaheim, CA.

Scoutvestor is designed to modernize investment scout programs for investors, scouts, and the companies themselves. Investors will be able to track and manage the opportunities presented by the scouts on a 'single pane of glass' and automatically input them into their own CRM systems, while scouts may register their deals and track their progress through the investment process, from due diligence to exit.

Austin Active Networking is a hand-curated calendar of networking events across Austin that have some sort of fitness or athletic component. The main focus is to help others discover Walk and Talks like The Board Walks and Trail Talks, Founder Run Clubs, Pickleball, Pickup Basketball, Cycling groups etc.

ActivateATX is a directory geared towards independent event hosts in Austin, Texas. ActivateATX helps hosts collaborate with a shared calendar and resources, including venue information, service providers, and best practices.

CPG Independent Media List is a hand-curated list of independent podcasts and newsletters in the CPG Industry

ATX Quick Start Guide a single-page resource guide to help newcomers to the tech and startup scene navigate the people, organizations, and events surrounding the Austin tech ecosystem.

ATX CPG Resources a shared presentation that encompasses organizations and people focused on the emerging Consumer Packaged Goods industry surrounding Austin, Texas.