FORT WORTH MEDTECH CENTER INC
1120 South Freeway, Fort Worth, TX 76104 www.techfw.org

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Organizations Filed Purposes: TechFW encourages the development of the technology business community by helping regional entrepreneurs commercialize innovative technology.

FOR ENTREPRENEURS: TechFW is entrepreneurs helping entrepreneurs commercialize innovative technologies. TechFW has four main programs for entrepreneurs. During 2019, eight client companies participated in our 3-month ThinkLab accelerator, 25 clients participated in our next-step SmartStart and two participated in our FastForward incubation programs. Six of the incubation program clients also completed our M-Crew mentoring program. Of the 35 total clients supported in 2019, 37% had women and 34% had minorities on their founding and leadership teams. ThinkLab is a personal investment by an entrepreneur in the foundations of their technology venture and skill development as a founder and entrepreneur. By design, the ThinkLab program helps founders and entrepreneurs determine whether there is enough value to pursue a product or service idea, identify potential markets, develop a path to market strategy, and learn how to communicate the value of the idea to early stakeholders and adopters. SmartStart is where founders build and launch their startup and tirelessly advance the people, tools and culture within their venture. The goal of SmartStart is to make it happen, through customized efforts to refine the plan, refer the company to appropriate management, consultants, potential partners, or others, and help the company find appropriate funding, etc. SmartStart clients can lease space during the time they need to implement their plans. FastForward is for executives scaling high-growth companies and taking on new leadership challenges with their business model. New executives often need help in seeking funding for growth, hiring, marketing, sales, implementing processes, and many other challenges. From our partnership with Texas Christian University, we were able to match 32 undergraduate interns with SmartStart and FastForward companies during 2019. This alliance has proved to be quite valuable for the companies and a real-world education for the students. Companies in SmartStart and Fast Forward qualify for our M-Crew program, which is a TechFW differentiator because a team of mentors with diverse experiences works with companies for six months. During this time, they focus on central barriers to growth and implementation that the founders and executives are facing. Our ability to recruit skilled mentors in diverse industries and match them to the needs of the companies has been the success of the program. We are fortunate to have found mentors truly looking to give before they get. During 2019, we matched 17 mentors with six companies and more than 500 hours of volunteer mentoring was provided. Space in TechFW's building was available for sublease to TechFW clients and graduates, as well as a few companies that provide services to TechFW clients. During 2019, more than 2,500 hours of coaching and mentoring services was provided to TechFW-supported companies and entrepreneurs. A highlight of 2019 was experiencing our third client exit in four years, with Exact Diagnostics being acquired by California-based Bio-Rad for $59.7M. Client companies collectively raised $3,315,395 in investments during 2019 and had capital infusion from grants and loans of $1,058,123. Client companies during 2019 collectively had 102 full-time equivalent (FTE) employees. Recent graduate OncoNano raised $23.7M in 2019 and in addition was awarded $15.4M in grants. Seventy-two volunteers provided direct support to entrepreneurs and support in the production of outreach events.

OUTREACH FOR THE COMMUNITY: Our outreach initiatives have a daily impact on the community. It is at the epicenter of innovation in Fort Worth and daily responds to community inquiries, networks its clients to the community and vice versa, and serves on committees across multiple industries to help Fort Worth innovate and grow. During the year, TechFW produces weekly newsletters and weekly events, an annual showcase of technology and innovation, an award luncheon and other specialty events for the entrepreneurial community. We partner with several organizations and institutions, including universities, corporate stalwarts and other entrepreneur support organizations. TechFW held its 3rd annual Impact Showcase in October and 37 technology startups, university researchers and student entrepreneurs showcased their innovations to 325 attendees. During 2019, there were 27 weeks of TechNest events where volunteer speakers from the community gave informal one-hour talks of value to client and community entrepreneurs at TechFW's facility with an average attendance of 22. Also, in 2019, TechFW produced its first Connect the Dots event in November during Global Entrepreneurship Week. The event showcased the wealth of global connections of the entrepreneurs that call Fort Worth home and explored the personal and professional journeys many have taken to build global companies. A pre-event survey collected data on the home countries of local entrepreneurs and the global sales, operations and partner locations of their ventures -- a reach across six of the seven continents. One hundred and thirty-five people attended the event, which featured global cuisine. In 2019, TechFW helped to recruit 10 startups across the region to MassChallenge TX and three were accepted for the Austin cohort. We also partnered with Capital Factory, which brought its first three-city road show to Fort Worth. More than 100 investors, mentors and entrepreneurs from Austin, Dallas and Houston connected with the Fort Worth entrepreneurial community. We also partnered in the launch of the iter8 Health Innovation Community in Fort Worth.

FOR INVESTORS: TechFW facilitates the interaction between angel investors and entrepreneurs from across the country with our Cowtown Angels program, educates new investors through our SmartVest program and partners with organizations to produce events connecting investors and entrepreneurs. The Cowtown Angels program was started in September 2012 to create a mechanism whereby local technology-based businesses could gain access to local funding by private investors. In 2019, more than 50 accredited investors paid an annual fee that entitles them to participate in monthly meetings to hear pitches from companies. TechFW coaches and helps prepare the applying companies so that they are better able to present their businesses well, provides feedback to the applying companies before and after their pitches, and facilitates all the meetings of the angel network. Each member makes his or her own investing decisions. Cowtown Angels generally has three profiles of members: retired professionals, serial entrepreneurs and professional investors, including family offices and private equity firms. Cowtown Angels is a member of the Angel Capital Association and the Alliance of Texas Angel Networks. Since launching, the group has invested more than $20 million into 41 portfolio companies; there have been two exits, one in 2016 with portfolio company, Encore Vision for $375M which is also a graduate of TechFW, and one in 2018 with SurveyLocal. The Cowtown Angels Fellows Program, initiated in 2013, is one of the most exciting and most coveted opportunities for advanced-degree students. The students work with Cowtown Angels at every level of the program, from observing the initial entrepreneur applications through funding for those startups that make the cut. In the process, they learn first-hand what qualities investors seek in funding early-stage startups, the deep dive questioning and the due diligence that go into the successful investing in a startup. To-date, 16 MBA students have served as Cowtown Angels Fellows. During 2019, we re-launched SmartVest, an educational startup investor series for Cowtown Angels and invitees and held three roundtable and speaker sessions which included discussions on term sheets, due diligence and portfolio management. Cowtown Angels also partnered with the University of North Texas Health Science Center in Fort Worth and Medical City Fort Worth in planning and organizing content and speakers for the first Investing in Biotech Summit to educate investors in the best practices of investing in biotech companies where we had sixty-nine attendees.

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