zirtue

The 2025 Southwest winners and stakeholders gather on stage at the EY Entrepreneur of the Year awards last weekend. [Photo via Dennis Cail]

The Last Word: EOY Judge On What It Really Takes to Build Something Extraordinary

by | Jun 25, 2025
The 2025 EY Entrepreneur Of The Year Southwest Awards were judged by a powerhouse panel of past winners—including Zirtue's Dennis Cail. What he saw in the 18 standout founders and executives? The grit and vision it takes to make it.
MORE
Dallas-Fort Worth Innovation Breakthroughs Mark 2025 Awards
D CEO and Dallas Innovates' Innovation Award winners are working to resurrect extinct species, launching autonomous trucks, reinventing military aircraft, and bringing AI into the physical world—and that's just the beginning. The 2025 awards showcase game-changing achievements—including Texas' first newly minted decacorn—across 17 categories of innovation. Here’s a look at the innovators leading the way.
MORE
Venture Dallas 2024 Kickoff Spotlights North Texas as a Thriving Hub for Entrepreneurs: ‘This Is the Best Time and Place To Be’
by | Nov 7, 2024
Behind the scenes at an exclusive VIP event at the Perot family's Circle T Ranch in Westlake, where Ross Perot Jr. and Anurag Jain held forth in an annual highlight of the Venture Dallas summit.
MORE
Finalists Announced for The Innovation Awards 2025, Presented by D CEO and Dallas Innovates
The Innovation Awards 2025 recognizes 76 companies and trailblazers paving the way for the future of innovation in North Texas. Here's who made the finalists list.
MORE

Venture Dallas Names Three Winners in Inaugural ‘Startup of the Year’ Awards

by | Nov 6, 2023
The winning companies were selected from 100+ nominees and eight semifinalists. They reflect "strong themes" in the Dallas-Fort Worth ecosystem: FinTech, DefenseTech, and PropTech, says steering committee member David Evans.
MORE
Dallas Fintechs MoneyGram and Zirtue Partner to Serve Unbanked, Underbanked Borrowers
by | Jun 21, 2023
Money-transfer heavyweight MoneyGram and startup Zirtue are teaming up. Uniting the giant's scale with the startup's relationship-lending tech, they aim to give more people around the world a 'hand up' in securing loans.
MORE
American National Bank of Texas Adds 2 New Members to Board
by | Apr 28, 2023
Suzanne Cruz-Sewell and Dennis Cail bring extensive business and civic experience to their roles on the bank's board "that’s focused on making our communities stronger by making businesses stronger.”
MORE
funding acquired

Follow the Money: ParkHub Acquires Parking Software Startup, UpSmith Raises $3.3M, Maverick Bancshares Seeks $17M for new Fort Worth Bank, and More

by | Oct 28, 2022
In this week’s North Texas deal flow, you’ll also find news about Taysha Gene Therapies landing a $50M investment; music tech startup MAX’s Series B raise; Dallas Venture Capital’s latest investment; Tyler Technologies’ $68M acquisition of Rapid Financial Solutions; NaturalShrimp hitting the Nasdaq Capital Market; and more.
MORE
Dallas Startups Deposits.com and DUKE.AI Land Google As New Backer
by | Sep 8, 2022
Two Dallas companies have been awarded $100,000 each by the Google for Startups Black Founders Fund, which aims to help close racial disparities in VC funding given to diverse founders. The startups will also receive Google Cloud credits and hands-on support from Google. They join several other North Texas companies that received earlier grants from the fund. “Across the U.S., there are amazing Black startup founders who are building great companies yet are locked out of access to the funding that's critical to their success,” Google wrote in a blog post.
MORE
SXSW’s 2023 ‘PanelPicker’ Opens For Voting—and DFW Companies Are Vying to Take the Stage
by | Aug 10, 2022
South by Southwest has opened its 2023 "PanelPicker" for crowd-sourced community voting through August 21. You could be among the people who vote to decide which panelists will take the stage next March at SXSW. Out of the thousands of session proposals up for voting, many have Dallas-area ties. We share just 10 of them—including ideas from Mark Cuban, the Dallas Cowboys, Venture Dallas, Dallas Innovation Alliance, CollateralEdge, Kanarys, Zirtue, Masterplan, and more.
MORE
Dallas Fintech Zirtue Opens Its Platform to Businesses as a New Alternative Payment Solution
by | Dec 7, 2021
Zirtue's Alternative Payment Solution—operating in stealth mode to Fortune 500 corporate partners since early 2021—is now open to all businesses for consumers to pay their bills. It's a "new level of convenience," CEO and Co-Founder Dennis Cail says: The product gives those who are struggling a way to lean on friends, family, and loved ones to make payments, while providing accountability and trust to the lender.
MORE
Dennis Cail Zirtue

Dallas Fintech Startup Takes the Awkwardness Out of Lending to Friends and Family

Dennis Cail launched Zirtue to reimagine lending. Its patent-pending app has been downloaded by hundreds of thousands of users. Ongoing access to Google engineers will help the fintech scale faster.
MORE
Two Dallas Startups To Pitch in $2M Competition for Black Founders
by | Dec 1, 2020
Dallas' own Kanarys, Inc. and Zirtue are joining the three-day Rise of the Rest Virtual Tour: Equity Edition. This year's speakers include AOL co-founder Steve Case and NBA and NHL sports team owner Ted Leonsis.
MORE
Meet the Finalists: The Innovation Awards 2021, Presented by Dallas Innovates and D CEO
by | Oct 13, 2020
Now in its second year, the program from Dallas Innovates and D CEO honors disruptors and trailblazers driving a new vision for North Texas.
MORE
Google for Startups Awards $300K to Four Dallas-Area Black Founders
by | Oct 6, 2020
CourMed, Kanarys, ShearShare, and Zirtue are among the 76 nationwide recipients of the $5 million Google for Startups Black Founders Fund. Each startup will receive non-dilutive cash awards—meaning that the founders aren't giving up any company ownership in exchange for the funding.
MORE