Global Startup Report LIVE from SXSW, powered by Founder Institute (11 March 2022)

Welcome, welcome everybody to the Global Startup Report powered by Founder Institute. My name is Dustin Betts. Today we are excited to be coming to you live from South by Southwest in Austin. Our host, Martin Martinez, will be speaking today with special guests from Dell for Startups, Aaron Welker and Lucas Chaya del Pino, about this afternoon's live South by pitch event that's featuring 8 FI startups and all the other exciting things that are happening this week at the South by Southwest Dell Experience stage. But before that, it's time for our opening network news segment, which I'm going to be handling solo today. We're going to bring you 3 super fast startup news stories today from across the FI Global Network. And so I'm just gonna get right to our first story so that then we can turn over to South by Southwest. So the number one story, I guess, that I wanna share first is the remote talent marketplace Instant Teams announced this week the raise of their $13 million Series A round. And that was led by Tiger Global, which is an investment group you might've heard of. Instant Teams was founded in 2016 by two military spouses, Liza Rodewald and Erica McManns, and it's an FI Washington, DC alumni. Yeah, and other participating investors in the round included big names like Plug and Play Tech Center, The Venture Fund, and Squadra Ventures, Brick Capital Ventures, and many more. So yeah, we're really excited about Instant Teams. They're doing some incredible things with connecting basically remote certified military-affiliated workers with all kinds of big employers, including like Amazon. So yeah, really excited about Instant Teams. And their announcement of their Series A. Congratulations to the team there. Second funding story also, it's MyTM, and they raised a $6.9 million seed funding round. MyTM is a Pakistan-based fintech company that offers solutions for ticketing, credit, recharge, and e-commerce. It was founded by Dr. Zain Farooq, and it's an FI Lahore company. So yeah, $6.9 million seed fund for this fintech Congratulations to Zane and the team at MyTM. I'm also going to drop all of these links as soon as I turn it over to Martine at South By. I'll share links to all these stories on the Founder Institute Twitter thread for this live stream, so you can go check it out @founding to see all these stories. Yeah, the last one I wanted to just share too, so this is not a funding news story, it's just a really cool profile. It's from the Globe and Mail, and the article is titled How Entrepreneurs with Disabilities Are Making of their own space in the business world, and it features ListenIn founder Aria Abraham, who is an FI Toronto alumni. And ListenIn is basically a mobile app that uses AI to identify sounds like fire alarms or sirens and turn those sounds into notifications on a smartphone that people who are deaf or hard of hearing can use to be aware of everything that's going on around them. And yeah, it's a really cool startup story, very personal. Need that led this founder to develop ListenIn, and yeah, just a really cool profile in the Globe and Mail. So we'll share that story with you also, yeah, in the Twitter feed. But yeah, without further ado, I want to turn it over here in just a minute to our main segment, which as I mentioned, it's gonna be live from South by Southwest, and our host Martine Martinez is there with Aaron Welker and Lucas Chaya del Pino from Dell for Startups. So I'm gonna go away now and turn it over to them, Really excited to bring this to you live from South By.

What's happening, Dustin? Hey, how we doing, everybody online, all around the socials, Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube? I'm Martin Martinez, as Dustin so eloquently introduced me. I'm joined here with Lucas Childalpino and Aaron Welger with Dell. And we're going to talk a little bit what's going on. But first, I just got to tell you all, ladies and gentlemen, if you're watching us online, drop some comments in the chat. I'm watching the feed right here. So I can see your comments when Dustin pops them up. Make them good. Tell us where you're coming from. We have a great show. As Dustin's already mentioned, I am here in the heart of Austin, Texas, where we are hosting South by Southwest for the first time back in person since 2019. Yeah, I know. I know. We're all a little rusty. I'll just say that. We're all a little rusty. But it's great. We have people from all over the world here. We're definitely keeping our safety precautions in mind, but it does feel good to finally start doing things in person. So where am I? So I'm sitting in a venue here in the middle of downtown Austin, and it's been completely activated with Dell, as you can see right here. We're in the media room at the moment. And I wanna talk to a little bit, we're gonna start with Aaron here and just learn a little bit more about what Dell is. Maybe some of you have heard of Dell, y'all maybe learned about the story story of Michael Dell. I just finished the biography not too long ago, um, so I, I have a whole primer on it. But for those of you that might not know it, Aaron, you might tell us a little bit about Dell, kind of how it's come to be such a stalwart here in Austin, and, um, and kind of what are the intentions of participating in South by Southwest?

Yeah, absolutely. So no surprise, most people know, uh, Dell Technologies started as a startup in a Dell room, in a dorm room, uh, only about 2 miles away over at UT, and Michael Dell started selling computers out of his dorm room, grew to his garage, and so forth, and progressed from there. And it's become what it is today, which is a full-service, start-to-finish, full technologies provider for businesses and consumers of all sizes. So currently we supply everything from infrastructure solutions such as servers, networking, storage, etc., to client solutions, laptops, systems like you and I would use on a daily basis. And I have the privilege of working with some specific segments within Dell to include Dell for Startups, which is a big theme of today here at South by Southwest. So we have an activation called our elevator pitch activation. It's actually a physical elevator. You walk into it, you give your 30-second elevator pitch, and each day we're awarding an XPS to the winner of that. And the whole space, like Martin said, is built out here with everything Dell. We talked about our diversity inclusion initiatives. What we're doing as a company, what we're doing outside of the company to progress those diversity and inclusion goals. Dell Technologies is all about building technology solutions to drive human progress. So we talk about that in different ways throughout the space. So we have the diversity inclusion pieces of it. We have the elevator pitch. We're very excited. We'll talk more about our pitch competition here in just a second. That'll be being livestreamed as well. So make sure you tune into that. Go to dell.com/ www.dell.com/ssxsw.

That is a hard one to say. SXX, yeah, South by Southwest.

Next segment is a contest on who can say that the fastest. And then if you're a startup, please register with us at dell.com/pitch, and you'll see more of the startup profiles there. Some of our partners like Founders Institute profiles about them there. So lots of good stuff for startups there. And that's just the start. We have Alienware activations here, which is of course our gaming portfolio. Some incredible stuff that we're doing there. I was just blown away. I don't know if you've seen the X14 yet, but it is the thinnest gaming laptop that I have ever seen. It is mind-blowing. So check that out. It's over in the corner up here. If you're in the area, come by, check it out. We have an AR platform upstairs where you can put on an alien, an alien-type suit in augmented reality. Of course, we're gonna have an awesome Austin band, Trouble in the Streets, tonight at 6 o'clock, right after our pitch competition. So we've got a lot going on, Martín, and that's just day one.

That's just day one. Y'all are here 4 days?

4 days. So we're here until Monday, and today is, today is really the day that's focused on startups, but every day is focused on Technology, growing your business in Texas. Lots of different themes. There's a whole lot going on, way, way too much for me to list. So go to Dell.com/SXSW and the full agenda is there.

I still can't say it. I don't know. I've been doing all my tongue twisters this morning as well. I can't get it down. I can't get it down. So good segue there. Dell for Startups. This is the day we're talking all things entrepreneurship, all things startups. And we got some great programming going on today. Lucas, what's going on? Why is F5 here even? Like, first, before we get into like the program for today, tell us a little bit more about what Dell for Startups is doing right now. What's changed? Because I know the program has changed a little bit in terms of how you position it, even what you're calling it. And what are you looking forward to, at least with this new initiative, with the new rebrand?

Yeah, sure. So Dell for Startups is a program dedicated to help entrepreneurs scale up their technology. Going back to what changed, the biggest thing that changed is the name. So we were Dell for Entrepreneurs up to yesterday and we're Dell for Startups starting today. So that's like something very, it's gonna be a today and an after for us. We have so many more benefits starting out today and we are pretty much a program dedicated to help you like scale up your business with technology. You get a ton of benefits. I'm just going to mention the main ones, but first you get free IT consultation for any technology project you're working on. And when I say any technology project, it's like any technology project. Second, we help founders with their initial costs for buying technology. We get special pricing, exclusive pricing for members. We have Dell Financial Services for entrepreneurs. We have seed units. That is, if you have a project that you're going to need technology throughout, like, the years, we can seed you at the beginning to help you start up with free units. And then so many, so many other benefits for being a member of the program, like exposure. Like today, you can participate in our pitch competitions. You can win tens and hundreds of thousands of dollars. And then you can get exposed in Dell's social media channels. Like we have some, some examples in the previous competitions and stuff. So the program is free to join. You can learn more at dell.com/startups. And if you want to reach out to us, startups@dell.com, and then somebody will get back to you in a few hours.

All right, in a few hours, startups@dell.com. I hope no one starts really just bombing y'all with a ton of emails here watching online. So we got a special treat today for the FI family. I mentioned we have this pitch event going on. Tell us a bit more about what the pitch specifically is in terms of who's pitching.

Yeah, of course. So today we're doing the first of 16 pitch competitions that we're doing this year. We have a tournament-style year-long championship that starts today, and it will end at the end of the year with more than $500,000 in prizes. Today we have 8 founders from Founder Institute. Thank you, Martin. They are all Austin-born startups, which is the theme of the event. And they're going to— the 2 winners are going to share $25,000 in prizes and get a pass to the semifinal where they will compete for $40,000 in prizes. And they will get a pass to the final with $100,000 in prizes. So we're very excited. We've seen the pitch decks and they are all amazing, amazing entrepreneurs and startups. So we're thrilled to have you guys. Actually there.

So I am really excited about it too. I was here yesterday just for a little bit watching the buildout. Thank you for letting me kind of poke around. And, uh, the, the— when y'all watch the live stream here coming up in a couple hours, ladies and gentlemen, it's, it's, it is a monster LED wall. Uh, you know, coming back from just pitching on Zoom basically for the last 2 years to going straight to that, um, it's really a treat. So thank you all for that. We have an amazing lineup of founders from FI Austin in the FI Texas community that are pitching today that I'm really honored to just have on this stage. It's going to be an amazing stage, you know, kicking things off, a friend of the family, the FI family, Tiana Lawrence, a good match, top mentor and great all-around just investor in residence for Founder Institute. So pitching a good match. We also have 7 other FI alumni from the Austin programs, Mario Mario, CEO and founder of CleverFi. Mariana Montiel of Seneva. Riley Knox, Accelerate3D. All these founder CEOs. Jackie Faye Burton of One January. I love her story. I hope you all watch the stream in a couple hours and just see and learn about why she does what she does. We have Catherine Webb of Intuly working on some really interesting things in health tech. And then rounding everything out— oh, I think I have them. I think I said them all. I know I'm missing one. I'm always missing one. It's going to come to me at some point. But Dustin will drop all of those people in the chat. NoRx. David Franklin. David Franklin, last but not least, coming in the clutch. Coming in the clutch. Coming in the clutch. David Franklin, NoRx. Also a very powerful story of what he's working on. So How are we on time, Dustin? I think we are doing pretty good on time. I know you can't talk to me, but I can see on my watch now we're doing great on time. So Dell for Startups today. How can we watch this again? Where are we going to have the stream going today?

At events.dell.com/startups.

So events.dell.com/startups. Watch the livestream. It's going to be a treat. I don't know if they're going to be broadcasting any of these interviews here from on that stage as well. Maybe, maybe not. We'll find out. We'll find out.

We need to make sure that happens. Yes. Let's get on that, Lucas.

Let's get on that. We'll tell the AV team here shortly. All right. So that's just day 1. That's just day 1 here at the Dell Experience at South by Southwest. We got a few more days going, Aaron. So what else is going on? Because, you know, Dell for Startups is a really big initiative, but Dell does so many different things too. So what else is going on for day 2 through day 4?

Sure. So I can give you a brief recap. Like I said, it's, it's, it's too much for me to remember all of them. But so please do check out the full agenda at dell.com/sxsw. But we're going to be covering topics like how artificial intelligence and machine learning can impact your business, how in Texas specifically you can grow your business, talking to Texas business professionals. On Monday, we're going to be talking about inclusive entrepreneurship with one of our friends, Jonathan Morris. If you're not familiar with his story, Look him up, hotel and barbershop owner, awesome entrepreneur. So there's going to be content throughout the whole 4 days here that's going to be super engaging. And then if you look at the agenda, if I'm not mistaken, every night there's going to be a musical guest and more of a party type atmosphere. So make sure you join us for the learning, make sure you join us for the party and the fun stuff too, because it's going to be a great opportunity. To learn stuff from people on the stage. But the beautiful thing about in-person events, finally, thank goodness, right? In-person events is you can actually talk to other people. You can talk to people like Martín and Lucas, right? That are able to help you grow your startup in different ways or, you know, just meet people that you didn't think you'd meet. So it's a lot of fun. It's a lot of fun.

I'm looking forward to it. I heard again, you know, the content's great, but the parties are fun. And even in really the sweetener on that, and then we got, you got musical performers every night. I mean, we have one stage, ladies and gentlemen, just for the content, the programming, and the pitch event. There's another stage upstairs that's just for the music. And I'm blown away. These are these giant LED installation walls. I can only imagine what the backdrops are going to look like when the artists go on stage. I actually have a friend of mine who's performing on Monday to close this out for you, Tamika Jones. So, she follows us on Twitter. She's not really in the stars, but she's all music, music, music. So, if you haven't It's going to be exciting to see her perform as well.

And I think that we might call it.

Anything else that y'all would like to say to the audience while we have us here? I know we got a tight schedule. We got the pitch event coming up here in a couple hours, and they're probably going to boot me out anyway out of this media room before I can get anything else. Any final things you want to tell our entrepreneurs that are watching here, or just our FI community, about what Dell's going on and do?

Yeah, sure. Please engage with us. We have so much going on. We have so many resources for startups and entrepreneurs. And if you want to participate in the future pitch competitions, send us an email, startups@dell.com. And then in that same link that we just said, events@dell.com/startups, you can participate, like you can watch all the next 15 pitch competitions also. So please, please engage with us for Anything that we can help with.

Awesome. Any final things from you and tell our Just Entrepreneur community? You said it, you've already said a lot, so I appreciate that. But anyway.

No worries. You know what? Dell believes in startups, pure and simple. We believe in startups and we believe that as part of that mission of using technology to drive human progress, startups are integral to that. So we believe in you. If there's some way that we can help, reach out to us. Lucas and his team, Awesome people, and we'll get you plugged in with a dedicated startup tech advisor that can walk with you through your entrepreneurial journey and give you resources, give you advice. And yeah, and then lots of cool ways to engage with the community through these pitch competitions and so forth. So we're excited. This is, you know, it was Dell for Entrepreneurs and we're relaunching as Dell for Startups, still doing a lot of great things, still having great partners like Founders Institute. And Martín, thank you so much for having us. Having us on this and getting to promote this a little bit. We appreciate it. We appreciate your partnership. So we're looking forward to continue partnerships with partners like Founders Institute and just working to serve you better.

Fantastic.

Thank you, Aaron.

Thank you, Lucas. I'm looking at you both while saying the opposite names. But coming to you live from South by Southwest, thank you all again for watching for this very special— I'll I'll probably be coming back from my regular spot in my home next week, maybe. We'll see. But Dustin, how you doing, man? You having fun over there?

Yeah, I'm having great. Yeah, I'm going to rehash all the links that you guys mentioned here. But yeah, thanks so much, Aaron and Lucas, for coming to us live. Really exciting stuff and really excited to see our alumni pitching on the stage later this afternoon.

Oh, fantastic. Thank you again, Dustin, for putting up with all this crazy on this end. As always, my friend. But for everybody else out there watching in FI land, wherever it is you are, we hope you're safe, we hope you're well. Take care of each other, take care of yourself. Build the future that we all want to see in the world, especially for the community that you want to see served. And we'll see you next time.

Awesome. Thanks so much, Martín. Thank you, Aaron. Thank you, Lucas. Okay, so just to rehash those links that they talked about really quick, that was really awesome. Thanks again to Aaron Welker and Lucas Chaya del Pino for joining us live from South by Southwest. So there's basically two options, right? If you are in Austin right now for South By, you can join at the Dell Experience Stage. It's at Brazos Hall. Basically you just have to go to dell.com/southbysouthwest. That's S-X-S-W, dell.com/sxsw. And then you can RSVP there. The event starts at 3:00 PM. Doors open at 2:30 PM at the Brazos Hall, the Dell Experience Stage. And yeah, those FI alumni who are gonna be pitching again are GoodMatch, NoRx, Accelerate3D, One January, Step Outside, Cineva, CleverFi, and Intuily, I believe, are the 8 who will be pitching. And so yeah, that's really it for today. We'll be back with our normal programming next week, but thanks everybody for watching and for, yeah, thanks especially to our guests who are joining us live from South By. Thanks everyone.