North Texas’ growing venture capital community was on full display Thursday at Old Parkland, as an estimated 450 company founders, investors and other community leaders gathered for the sixth annual Venture Dallas conference.

“Texas is the greatest [state] in this country, and America is going to win because of people like you who are building,” said Joe Lonsdale, co-founder of Miami-based software company Palantir Technologies and founder and managing partner of Austin-based 8VC.

Lonsdale’s VC firm was an early backer of Dallas-based life insurance startup Bestow.

Lonsdale was among more than 40 people who took the stage for the event, and his build-first optimism was a common theme. Other speakers included Dallas entrepreneur and investor Mark Cuban; Stephen Gillett, CEO of Dallas-based Verily Health; Lane Kasselman, co-CEO of Dallas-based Blockchain.com; and Will Edwards, co-founder and CEO of Addison-based Firehawk Aerospace.

Texas as a launchpad

Lonsdale moved from Silicon Valley to Austin in 2020. As evidence of what Texas can offer founders that other states can’t, he pointed to 8VC portfolio company Saronic. The Austin-based naval defense company broke ground in September on its next-generation shipyard, Port Alpha, in Brownsville. Lonsdale said Saronic couldn’t have started in California.

Austin-based energy storage company Base Power made a similar case. Base Power installs batteries at single-family homes to expand the power grid’s capacity. More than half its installations are in Dallas-Fort Worth.

Co-founder Justin Lopas discussed how the company was able to work with state lawmakers to standardize installation requirements, rather than navigate a patchwork of municipal rules. It was game-changing for Base Power’s growth, he said.

“I’m an engineer by training, and so it was always weird to me that physics doesn’t change across the street, but somehow regulation does,” he said.

Betting on a bright future

U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, said the state’s pro-innovation approach stands out. 

“If you want to create something, if you want to build something, how can we make it harder?” he said of the nation’s capital. “The attitude in Texas is exactly the opposite. It’s ‘How can we make it easier?’”

Looking ahead, Corny said he can’t imagine what the next 25 years will bring.

“Every day I wake up, it seems like some other sort of science fiction thing has happened,” he said. “America has awakened to the opportunities for AI — or super intelligence, as President Trump likes to call it — which is exciting. But obviously there are some collateral consequences in terms of jobs and how [we are] going to adjust to this incredible innovation technology.”

Yet he remains optimistic.

“As long as we have people like those in this room who are willing to take a few well-calculated risks and create something new and something useful and important,” Cornyn said, “I think the future is bright indeed.”