Creating a community to invest in the community – that was the theme of the night at Republic Cities’ launch in North Texas during Global Entrepreneurship Week Fort Worth.
The early-stage startup crowdfunding investment platform created by New York-based Republic announced the creation of Republic Dallas, a curated community local startups and stakeholders of the Republic platform.
Locally, the company is partners with SMU, The DEC Network, Integrative Ventures, Capital Factory and Worklodge.
“Our mission from day one has been to democratize startup financing with retail capital. For startups out there, that means you no longer have to be located in venture capital hubs… you could be right here,” said Pialy Adita, chief strategy officer at Republic, at the launch event. “This means anyone, regardless of wealth, can become an angel investor and have access to highly vetted startups.”
The announcement follows Republic’s acquisition of Houston-based local investing platform NextSeed, deepening its ties to the Lone Star state. As part of that deal, NextSeed CEO Youngro Lee joined Republic as its new COO.
The Republic Cities platform is open to all users, minimum investment requirements as low as $10 (although individually minimum investments are set by the companies). Currently, Republic Dallas has four startups listed on its site, including Sparkle, Nada, Hidrent and Lavabit. The website also list four active investors.
While the Republic Cities concept is new, with Dallas being one of the first cities, Adita said the company has more than 800,000 members and about 250 startups have collectively raised about $200 million through the platform. She added that about 50 percent of that capital went to underrepresented founders, a number that far exceeds that in the traditional VC ecosystem.
“Growing businesses in local communities are not only creating jobs, they’re also helping to define the local culture and building out this ecosystem that we think is pretty foundational within our communities,” said Abe Chu, co-founder and CMO at NextSeed, at the event
Republic said it part of the reason it chose Dallas was due to its large tech talent pool, access to capital and higher education institutions. It also said Dallas is an up-and-coming startup hub, citing its CompTIA ranking as the No. 2 “Tech Town” in the country, behind Austin. And at the event, Eduardo Zaldivar, Republic venture partner and advisor at TXV Partners, said he hope Republic furthers that by creating a density of founders and investors investing back into the local ecosystem.
“I fundamentally believe that Dallas is going to be, over the next 10 years, the No. 1 place for entrepreneurs,” Zaldivar said. “Dallas has all the essential elements to be that next startup hub.”
At the moment, startups on the Republic Dallas platform can raise a little more than $1 million, as per SEC rules. However, the commission recently announced changes to its crowdfunding rules, and startups on the platform and elsewhere will be able to raise up to $5 million through crowdfunding.
“I think there’s something powerful about the community being able to invest in itself,” Zaldivar said.
