The Texas investor report: Austin, Dallas, Houston and beyond

• 1,654 Texas startup-investor records, 4th among US states.
• Family offices: 43% of Texas records (65% in Dallas).
• Austin: 211 pre-seed investors, the most in the state.
• Climate: 21% of Texas investors vs 16% nationally.
• Median check $150K to $1.6M.

Key findings

• Texas has 1,654 startup-investor records in our database, the most of any state outside California, New York and Massachusetts.
• Three metros hold most of them: Austin (585), Dallas (540) and Houston (411), and they look very different from each other.
• Family offices are the largest group: 711 records, 43% of the Texas total, against 25% nationally. In Dallas they are 65% of startup-investor records.
• Austin is the state's venture and pre-seed hub: 211 of the Austin metro's 585 records list pre-seed (36%).
• Climate and energy is over-represented: 21% of sector-tagged Texas investors list it, against 16% nationally. In Houston it is the second most listed sector.

Why Texas needs its own report

Texas is big enough to be its own startup market and varied enough that "Texas investors" means little on its own. An Austin software founder, a Dallas consumer brand and a Houston energy-tech company will each find a different set of investors near them. This report uses the Zalarma investor database, as of 2026-11-01 to break the state down by metro, investor type, stage, sector and check size.

Austin, Dallas and Houston compared

• Austin is venture-led: 381 venture firm and partner records and 145 angels. B2B software (297), consumer (246) and healthcare (156) are the most listed sectors. See Austin investors.
• Dallas is family-office country: 351 of 540 records. Venture records number 124. See Dallas investors.
• Houston mixes family offices (220) and venture firms (139), and is the climate and energy center: 68 climate investors, second only to software (77). See Houston investors.

Other Texas cities

San Antonio (84) is the fourth-largest bench, and Dallas suburbs such as McKinney, Southlake and Rockwall add sizable benches of their own. Fort Worth (42) and El Paso (24) round out the list.

What Texas investors fund

Share is of Texas startup investors who list at least one sector (861), next to the US share.

Climate and energy is the clear outlier. Software, consumer and fintech are slightly less common than nationally, and deep tech and hardware match the national share. See the Texas B2B SaaS list and Texas healthcare list, or our climate investors report.

Stages, types and checks

• Stages listed: pre-seed 385, seed 811, Series A 481, Series B and later 270. See pre-seed investors in Texas.
• Median check range: $150K to $1.6M, against $150K to $3M for all US startup investors.
• Check bands by minimum (894 with a stated check): under $50K 114; $50K–$250K 422; $250K–$1M 171; $1M+ 187.

Firms with the most Texas investor records

Records in brackets: Capital Factory (16), S3 Ventures (13), Chevron Technology Ventures (12), Mercury Fund (10). Others with several records include Golden Section Ventures, Bios Partners, Silverton Partners, Elsewhere Partners, Next Coast Ventures, Antler, Trust Ventures, Multicoin Capital. The list mixes Texas firms with national firms that have investors based in the state, so check where the partner you pitch actually sits.

What to do with this

1. Pick your metro's playbook. In Austin, lead with venture firms and angels. In Dallas and Houston, family offices are most of the local capital and need a warm path.
2. Raise across the triangle. Austin, Dallas, Houston and San Antonio are close enough that a Texas round can draw on all four.
3. Energy and climate founders: start in Houston. The Houston metro has 68 climate investors and 13 corporate VC records in our data.
4. Size the round for local checks. With a median ceiling of $1.6M, plan for several investors rather than one large check.

Full state list: startup investors in Texas.

Methods note

Data: Zalarma investor database, as of 2026-11-01. Records are US startup investors (angels, venture firms and partners, micro-VCs, family offices, corporate VCs and accelerators) with Texas as their state; one record can carry several types, stages and sectors. Metro figures use our metro definitions for Austin, Dallas and Houston. Cities are as recorded on each record, so "Dallas" the city and the Dallas metro differ. Sector shares use as the base the records that list at least one sector. Firm counts are the number of investor records tied to that firm. Counts under 10 are suppressed and shown as "under 10". These are records in our database, not a census of every Texas investor.