Tag Archives: finance

Texas FinTech

Founders, North Texas is the World’s FinTech Hub

FinTech, Industry, Insights / Research, Regional Development, Startups, , , , , ,

“You’re really seeing a whole new North Texas ecosystem,” noted H. Ross Perot, Jr., son of the former presidential candidate, about the phenomenon other investors have termed a finance invasion making me cringe a bit (if I’m being honest) at being termed Y’all Street. Perot Jr. sold the Dallas Mavericks basketball team to Mark Cuban for $285 million.

The site of Perot’s real-estate investment company, Hillwood, is involved in the development of a $500 million Goldman Sachs tower for more than 5,000 bankers and investors, making it the firm’s second-largest office, behind only New York. Nearby, two unfinished Wells Fargo office towers, scheduled to open next year. More in the area, a fourth office building under construction for Charles Schwab, which moved its headquarters from California to the Dallas area five years ago… and let’s not overlook, Deloitte is doubling in size.

You know what, let me just summarize a list of why the Y’all Street moniker has merit, and keep in mind my work through economic development, developing effective startup ecosystems, in that I’ve frequently reinforced to cities that you must have major innovative companies, employing people and supporting the community of entrepreneurs, within a specific sector of the economy.  Welcome to Y’all Street:

  • JPMorgan Chase has a significant presence in North Texas, with its regional headquarters in Dallas. The firm has been expanding in the area, particularly in operations, technology, and real estate. They’re known for having one of the largest offices in downtown Dallas and an operational hub in Plano.
  • Goldman Sachs is currently building a large regional campus in Dallas. This will house thousands of employees, and it’s part of the firm’s strategy to decentralize from Wall Street. The Dallas office is focused on a variety of functions, including technology, operations, and investment banking.
  • Bank of America has a large corporate presence in the Dallas area, including wealth management, commercial banking, and investment services. The Charlotte-based company leads several key functions from Dallas.
  • Fidelity Investments has one of its largest regional campuses in Westlake, north of Fort Worth. This facility houses thousands of employees and is a central hub for technology, customer service, and retirement services. The campus plays a big role in the company’s operations, especially in brokerage services.
  • Charles Schwab has established its corporate headquarters in Westlake too, after moving from San Francisco in 2021. Schwab’s operations in North Texas focus on brokerage, financial services, and retirement planning, capitalizing on Texas’ business-friendly environment.
  • Wells Fargo has a significant office in Irving and Las Colinas, part of the broader Dallas-Fort Worth area. The bank’s regional operations include commercial banking, mortgage services, and wealth management. While it isn’t headquartered in Texas, its local influence is strong, especially in lending and financial services.
  • Texas Capital Bank focuses on commercial banking, wealth management, and investment banking services from Dallas. The bank serves middle-market businesses and high-net-worth individuals, making it a prominent regional player.
  • Comerica Bank moved its headquarters from Detroit to Dallas in 2007, hopefully now establishing for you that the major financial firms are moving to Texas. Comerica offers commercial lending, wealth management, and retail banking, and its Dallas headquarters oversees nationwide operations.
  • American Airlines Credit Union based in Fort Worth, is one of the largest credit unions in the U.S., serving employees of American Airlines and their families. It offers a wide range of financial products, including loans, investments, and savings products.
  • BBVA USA was acquired by PNC Financial Services but maintains its significant footprint in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. PNC continues to operate for the region consumer banking, commercial banking, and investment services.
  • Santander Consumer USA a major player in the automotive finance industry, focusing on subprime lending, from its offices in Dallas. It operates independently but is a subsidiary of the Spanish banking giant Santander Group.
  • Highland Capital Management, based in Dallas, is an investment firm specializing in alternative investments, including distressed debt, private equity, and real estate. 
  • Populus Financial Group provides short-term consumer loans, card services, check cashing, money transfers, bill payments and money orders from their offices in Irving.
  • PlainsCapital Bank is a subsidiary of Hilltop Holdings with their headquarters in Dallas. It focuses on commercial lending, wealth management, and mortgage services, serving businesses and individuals throughout Texas.

This sprawling landscape illustrates an expansion that has transformed North Texas into a financial powerhouse, now second only to New York City in the U.S.

In innovation and entrepreneurship, it’s critical that cities, universities, and even a state (or country) understand the impact of this distinct expertise because it is critical to founders and investors that within the region are potential partners, experienced employees, industry specific investors, and journalists and conferences that know the sector.  It is not only disingenuous for a city to claim it’s ideal for startups, a tech hub, or as should be evident in this expose, exceptional for FinTech Founders, what it lacks the breadth and depth of an entire sector of the economy.  To put it bluntly of the state I love, if you’re in FinTech, you shouldn’t be considering San Antonio, or Austin, when all that is pertinent to you is in North Texas. 

North Texas’ Startup Evangelist of the year for 2023, Michael Kelly, founder of Entrecore, which an AI for investors in startups, increasing the speed and transparency of information, “Most VCs talk to each other and just copy what the other person is doing. But you can’t achieve non linear returns by doing what everyone else is doing. You have to invest in pattern breakers, not pattern makers.” It’s this thinking at the heart of innovation and while people today might think of Finance as New York, or startups moving from Silicon Valley to Austin, entrepreneurs break the way things are to create what’s better.

New York’s foothold on finance still dwarfs that of North Texas. But greater Dallas has largely shed its reputation as a financial backwater, memorialized in Michael Lewis’s 1989 book, Liar’s Poker, as a purgatory Salomon Brothers traders in New York feared being shipped off to. Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that Texas investment-banking and securities employment has increased 111% over the past 20 years and 27% since the pandemic, compared with 16% and 5%, respectively, in New York. The number of people employed in finance overall has risen 13% in Texas since 2019, compared with 2% in New York and 3% nationally.  Companies are moving their headquarters to this region of the world, and if you want to innovate, start a company, or find investors who get it, your foremost consideration should be “where do they get it?”

Ray Perryman, president of the Perryman Group, an economic research and analysis firm, noted that Texas has outpaced New York for several years in banking employment and is rapidly gaining in investment employment, “Wall Street remains the center of the investment universe, but Y’all Street is gaining rapidly.” Annabel Morgan, steering people to get involved in retail innovation, while being well known for her impact on entrepreneurship through Goldman Sachs, highlights that such a distinct focus (and hopefully you appreciate how retail innovation parallels FinTech) is open for you to get involved with the RevTech Ventures Summit coming up on Sept. 25. RevTech Ventures invests in the technologies and concepts driving the future of retail from their home in Dallas.

While the flight of many Silicon Valley tech executives to Austin has been exhaustively reported, the finance boom in North Texas has gone less noticed.  I want you to appreciate that the reason for that is largely because “entrepreneur” is the new celebrity and “startup” is the sex appeal of the economy such that attention gets drawn to where the hype surrounds that possibility.  But what makes the startup sector thrive is NOT having some entrepreneurs nor a handful of venture capitalists but being the distinct place ideal for specific innovation.

JPMorgan Chase now has more employees in Texas (31,000) than in New York state (28,300). In Texas, about 12,700 employees work out of a 50-acre campus in the Dallas suburb of Plano, where meeting rooms are decorated with saddles and Western wear, and on-site eateries include a Texas barbecue stand.  “You can do the job you’d do in New York, but in a different location,” says Andy Rabin, who oversees JPMorgan’s investment banking in the Southwest; indirectly saying, the different location that what’s known to be the Financial Capital of the world, is North Texas.

Beyond the large companies, and human resources and experience, a startup ecosystem thrives when it focuses not on the distinct needs of companies (such as tax incentives or workforce development programs), but of startups, which I’d like to remind you, are not merely new businesses.   Here, housing costs are lower than in many other U.S. cities, and space to build new facilities is plentiful. Situated in the middle of the U.S., with one of the country’s biggest airports, it is a quick nonstop flight from virtually any major city. Executives and investors, let’s be frank, appreciate the state’s low-tax, low-regulation approach to business. 

Let’s take a look not at established companies but something more innovative, what of decentralized FinTech or cryptocurrency?

  • Hedera, thanks to founders from the University of Texas, is connected to the broader North Texas ecosystem through its partnerships and tech presence. Hedera Hashgraph is known for its distributed ledger technology (DLT), which is often positioned as an alternative to traditional blockchain technology. Hedera’s technology focuses on providing fast and secure decentralized applications for enterprise use, which has made it a strong player in the blockchain space.
  • Layer1 Technologies, a cryptocurrency infrastructure company, focuses on energy-efficient bitcoin mining. Its approach is to vertically integrate cryptocurrency mining with a focus on controlling the energy supply chain, which is especially relevant given Texas’ significant role in energy production. Layer1 has gained attention for its ambitions in building large-scale mining operations in Texas, capitalizing on the state’s cheap and abundant electricity.
  • Riot Platforms is based in Colorado but operates one of the largest Bitcoin mining facilities in Rockdale, Texas, just outside the North Texas region. However, its ties to the broader Texas crypto-mining ecosystem are worth mentioning. Riot Platforms is one of the largest public bitcoin mining companies in the U.S. and has been instrumental in scaling crypto infrastructure in Texas, benefitting from the state’s vast energy resources.
  • Blockmetrix aims to bring more institutional-grade mining solutions to the market. It focuses on Bitcoin mining and aims to leverage the energy efficiency of Texas to scale operations. The company is part of the growing trend of Bitcoin miners relocating to Texas to take advantage of low electricity costs.
  • TMGcore is a blockchain infrastructure company based in Plano known for developing high-performance, liquid-cooled data center solutions aimed at improving the efficiency of crypto mining operations. Their data centers support not only blockchain technologies but other high-performance computing applications, blending the worlds of blockchain and broader tech infrastructure.
  • Coinstash is providing services for purchasing, trading, and storing cryptocurrencies. They focus on making crypto more accessible to individual investors, allowing users to buy a variety of digital assets through their platform.
  • Pegasus FinTech focuses on providing blockchain solutions and strategic advisory services. The company works with enterprises and startups to develop tokenized ecosystems and manage token offerings (initial coin offerings or security token offerings). Pegasus aims to bridge the gap between traditional finance and blockchain-based solutions.
  • GigWage has started exploring blockchain technology to enhance its platform, which provides payroll services for the gig economy. The fintech firm aims to incorporate blockchain for faster and more transparent payment systems, especially for freelancers and independent contractors, marking its potential entry into the blockchain space.
  • Applied Blockchain develops decentralized applications for enterprises, focusing on supply chain, financial services, and other sectors where blockchain can improve transparency and efficiency.
  • TruLabs focuses on blockchain-based solutions for personal identity management, secure document verification, and similar applications. Their technology allows for decentralized and verifiable proof of identity, which can be used in a wide variety of industries, including financial services, healthcare, and logistics.
  • MyCryptoWallet is a crypto trading and wallet service company that offers users the ability to buy, sell, and store digital assets. Their focus is on providing secure, user-friendly tools for consumers who want to manage multiple cryptocurrencies.

In 2021, Texas becomes one of the first US states to adopt crypto and blockchain technology under its commercial law. Lee Bratcher, the president of the Texas Blockchain Council, noted that House Bill 4474 allows “institutional investors to get involved with sizable investments.” 

The money-management firm Fisher Investments moved its headquarters to Plano from Washington last year after that state’s Supreme Court upheld a new capital-gains tax on its wealthiest residents to fund early-childhood education programs. Ken Fisher, the founder, had already moved during the pandemic to a lakeside North Texas but now, the firm which has corporate offices in four states and eight countries, has more than a quarter of its employees in the Dallas area.

“Texas is a mindset more than it is any other thing,” said Fischer. “That mindset of futurism that, ‘We’ve got a problem, but we can take care of it.’”

As I remarked about Michael Kelly’s observation, this is an entrepreneurial mindset and it’s that unusual personality trait that lays the foundation of a startup ecosystem.

Nearly a decade ago, the Partnership for New York City, a nonprofit group of chief executive officers that aims to bolster the city, warned that New York’s future as the world financial capital could be at risk because of growing competition from places like Dallas. Since then, Texas has wooed major projects with Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson saying it was a priority when he assumed office in 2019 to make the city the site of the new Goldman Sachs project. 

What is developing in North Texas, IF the community collaborates and supports the distinct ecosystem of FinTech, mirrors the broader trend across the state, where different regions are starting to appreciate the value of specializing in sectors that leverage their economic strengths. Houston justifiably leads in SportsTech with news explored by Natalie Harms and Lawson Gow, or Energy innovation, which should be no surprise; San Antonio is ideal to CyberSecurity and Defense; and Austin’s impact is in the Creative sectors, eCommerce, and Logistics. Texas is taking what Silicon Valley built and applying that model within specific industries that are critical to the state’s economy, driving innovation and growth in ways that are reshaping the global landscape.  Wasteful is *failing* to do this or hoping to be meaningful to all entrepreneurs, every startup, or “tech,” rather than, say, FinTech.

Scott Parsinen, from Arlington, Texas, is playing a pivotal role with The Founders Arena‘s WealthTech Accelerator, which is crucial for the early-stage fintech startups that are increasingly calling North Texas home, “Entrepreneurs are the driving force behind the future; with proper support, that future can be realized even more rapidly.  To support this, we established The Founders Arena (TFA), a ground-breaking public-private initiative based in Arlington, Texas, dedicated to co-creating the future of wealth management.” On the investment side explicitly in Texas, Trey Ikard and Wiv Ventures are heavily focused on fintech, ensuring that the influx of startups has the financial backing they need to thrive in this competitive environment.

The newest development to the region, The Texas Stock Exchange (TXSE) is set to be a national stock exchange headquartered in Dallas, providing U.S. and global companies with access to U.S. equity capital markets through a fully electronic platform. TXSE intends to facilitate trading for public companies and exchange-traded products (ETPs) while focusing on being more “CEO-friendly” than existing exchanges like the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) and Nasdaq.

TXSE’s development has been bolstered by a successful $120 million capital raise, with backing from major financial institutions such as BlackRock and Citadel Securities. The exchange plans to begin trading in 2025 and host its own listings by 2026. The founders believe that Texas is a prime location for the exchange due to the state’s economic growth and increasing prominence in innovation and finance; one of TXSE’s key goals is to address frustrations from companies regarding high compliance costs and regulations associated with other exchanges.

North Texas has quietly become the epicenter of FinTech innovation, driven by a confluence of major financial institutions, a booming startup culture, and a regulatory environment tailored to foster growth. With JPMorgan, Charles Schwab, and Goldman Sachs expanding their footprints, and startups like Hedera Hashgraph and Layer1 Technologies leading in blockchain advancements, the region offers unparalleled opportunities for founders and investors. The low cost of living, easy access to capital, and robust infrastructure position North Texas as a hotbed for entrepreneurship. For cities aspiring to build a meaningful startup ecosystem, it’s not about attracting any entrepreneurs—it’s about anchoring to an industry, like North Texas has with finance. If you’re serious about doing this right, let’s connect, and I’ll help you figure out the steps needed to truly make your city a home for startups.

Uncovering Austin FinTech as an Ecosystem

FinTech, Industry, Texas Startups, , , , , ,

I have a confession to get off my chest. In my work through Austin, I’ve long celebrated and promoted the maturing of Austin’s startup ecosystem by illuminating that we’re starting to specialize and move beyond downtown; that, as the most effective startup ecosystems do, the city of Austin isn’t generically “tech” and shouldn’t be considered or compared as a “best place for startups” – what makes Austin exceptional is that it is ideal for SOME sectors, and that entrepreneurs and investors thrive efficiently when they focus on where those strengths converge and collaborate.

Austin is CPG, food and beverage, shipping and logistics, smart city, video games, social media and data, 3D printing, and advanced manufacturing, to name a few.

Founders, investors, journalists, the best of use of your time is in identifying the PART of a city where that industry is found and focusing your time and attention there.

This is evident in WHY cities like New York are known for their Districts and is hopefully more appreciating in recognizing that various cities aren’t “best for tech,” “the next Silicon Valley,” nor “ideal for startups,” because macroeconomically, cities have strengths and weaknesses – Atlanta and television, Houston and space or energy, Raleigh Durham’s Research Triangle for biotech and healthcare.

In a world where we’re considering how remote and global workforces can actually work together reasonably well, the fact remains that proximity, face time, and even living close to work, enables entrepreneurship and innovation.

All that said, I’ve not yet shared my confession…

In my talks celebrating Austin’s strengths and rallying people to focus on our specialties, I’ve often pointing out that Austin isn’t, for example, ideal for FinTech.

I’d like to reconcile that and beg your forgiveness by sharing how MediaTech Ventures‘ work in and model of venture development (establishing startup ecosystems in cities), uncovers how wrong I was.

Uncovering FinTech

May 15-18, 2023. CONNECT 23 returns to Austin, TX with insights from industry thought leaders and new innovations to help financial institutions transform their digital banking experience, thanks to Q2.

Now, as a measure of clarifying my own apology, let me point out that I know Q2 well; everyone in Austin does, thanks more publicly and culturally to their support of Austin FC, who plays at Q2 Stadium.

That too said, let me stress that a company does not an ecosystem make, but it’s in that quick glance at the work Q2 is doing, that we can better realize and appreciate the present and future of the ecosystem here, and the fact that I was wrong.

A big part of the reason Silicon Valley was so substantial in innovation is because the companies play an active and collaborative role in supporting their sector. Companies sitting on the sidelines are a sign that that region of the world isn’t actually creative, innovative, and supportive of entrepreneurship; they’re happy doing what they do behind closed doors. And there is nothing at all wrong with a company operating that way, but when the companies in your city aren’t involved, it’s valid to ask WHY they aren’t hosting meetups, underwriting innovation programs, producing conferences, and sponsoring the culture.

A better part of how and why Austin has become the hub of innovation and entrepreneurship that it is SXSW, a conference, and the opportunity for everyone here to connect, learn, and collaborate, in that case, with a hint of Film and Music driving the innovation. Q2’s CONNECT 23 is an investment in FinTech Austin.

Let me take a step back though, and clarify Venture Development.

When we work with cities, VCs, and companies to help a region of the world develop a startup ecosystem, we’re looking holistically at sectors of the economy there to discern and strengthen that which already exists.

From companies we look to incubators and where geographically (in coworking or offices) an industry can be found. We look further into related startup studios, accelerators, and of course, the venture capital ecosystem in support of the sector in question. We do this with a city, to then help put in place whatever might be LACKING so that the entrepreneurs in that region flourish; we organization those gaps in 5 ways: the network of people, education specific to that sector, promotion of the industry itself, the tools and platforms (industry norms) and how well those are established, and the places where people can connect and collaborate.

With these two maps of an ecosystem overlaid, entrepreneurship thrives WHEN the region works with others to close the gaps so that founders aren’t struggling through missing pieces.

While I used to point out that Austin isn’t the banking or financial hub of a place like New York City (hence, it wouldn’t be ideal for FinTech), starting with Q2, Austin’s FinTech ecosystem is much more vibrant than might be obvious.

On June 15, 2021, cryptocurrency-specific legislation was passed under the laws of Texas when Governor Abbott into law amendments to the state’s Business & Commerce Code to address virtual currency. This was the first of its kind in the country. Overall, the law specifically addresses cryptocurrency by recognizing the legal status of virtual currency, ensuring that cryptocurrencies are subject to commercial laws under Texas regulations, and supplying legal rights to cryptocurrency holders. The Act legitimized the legal status of cryptocurrency by providing it a legal definition “a digital representation of value that is used as a medium of exchange, unit of account, or store of value” that is not legal tender. There is quite a bit more to appreciate herein, and my article is not about cryptocurrency so take a peek at Freeman Law’s great summary here if you’re interested. My point is in highlighting how Texas led the way in standardizing recognition of what’s next in FinTech; it wouldn’t have done that without local domain expertise and demand from industry to establish norms.

What my exploration of Q2 should help you see is that what we have is not just a company but a company investing in the ecosystem – providing the Promotion, Network, and Education elements in CONNECT, and driving the creative class and culture by sponsoring the football club’s stadium.

Not yet mentioned, Q2 Innovation Studio, addressing our Incubator and Startup Studio needs and it’s from within Q2’s Innovation Studio that we start to see a flywheel of innovation spin through collaboration in Austin, Tailwind Business Ventures, one of the country’s leaders in banking and finance software development from right here in Central Texas, joined Q2 as their first certified SDK partner.

Pieces of a puzzle come together

Clients have high demands, especially after the pandemic, in terms of what the experience should be and what they want it to feel like. Q2 and Tailwind have been fabulous partners, working with us to customize that experience by segment.”

– Katie Heim, Johnson Financial Group’s senior vice president and director of bank product solutions

Supporting and promoting the ecosystem at large, Tailwind goes well beyond being a company on the sidelines as well, hosting a wonderful series of interviews through FinTech and other industries, called Humanizing Software. Subscribe (via LinkedIn), because it’s only in FOCUSING your work on the participants in the ecosystem that you start to see the patterns that I overlooked and find what is more meaningful to your work and to help you thrive. For example, one of Andrew Tull’s earlier interviews was with Gartner’s Teri Kelly, who’s career in data science previously had her working with Austin based Valkyrie, where founder Charlie Burgoyne and then Principal Scientist Dr. Meredith Butterfield penned, Why Banks Need to Radically Rethink Data.

Now is the time for banks to pivot quickly with the customer at the center of their strategy and with new tools to understand their behavior and new solutions to serve their needs. This is the moment to experiment, to take risks and test the waters as we chart a plan and put a stronger foundation in place to sustain our growth. New technologies, new products and new relationships to data aggregation are going to be the fuel for the future.”

That thought epitomizes the culture and spirit of Austin itself and so it certainly reflects that we’re here a hub of FinTech and innovation in banking and finance.

Chief Innovation and Technology Officer Allan Rayson was been named the 2022 Digital Banker of the Year by American Banker.  His innovative digital strategy for Encore Bank, through Austin, played unprecedented growth for a bank, which surpassed $2 billion in assets in May 2022, just three years after being founded in 2019.

In the spring of this year, PayPal announced consolidation of their offices in the region into the Domain in North Austin. PayPal’s buildout of the 60,000-square-feet office — about 20 percent of the building’s leasable space – signals the strength and focus of WHERE to be, and my point that a mature ecosystem of innovation identifies in what part of town to concentrate. Tailwind is in Cedar Park, NW of Austin, Q2 is in NW Austin, and PayPal is consolidating there as well… VISA has offices off 183 in NW Austin… and I could go on.

What it’s well time to explore and energize is that Austin is FinTech and with more concentration of events, meetups, investors, journalists, and companies, in financial innovation in the NW region of this city, we’ll see innovation and entrepreneurship thrive through collaboration, connection, and concentration of the future of Finance here. We can do more, let’s develop a FinTech incubator on our platform, let’s support the meetups, and let’s help the media tell the stories such as this, so that everyone knows why Austin.

Q2’s CONNECT 23 is here in a matter of weeks. As we do in Austin with SXSW, take advantage of it, whatever your role in FinTech – get together, meet, and work together; the ideal way to start is by connecting with everyone and every company I’ve mentioned here so that your work as a FinTech founder flourishes (I love ending on alliteration!)