Texas is a national hub for social and environmental impact entrepreneurship, and is a world leader in the health care and energy sectors. The Texas Medical Center in Houston in the largest complex of hospitals in the world. Austin’s Dell Medical School is a leader in innovation. Dallas, Austin and Houston have multiple impact-focused accelerators.

Shown below are  impact entrepreneurial support organizations in Austin.

Austin Organizations Supporting For-Profit Impact Start-ups

Austin Organizations Supporting Non-profit Organizations

  • Austin Community Foundation: has established a social-impact fund focused on non-profits that benefit central Texas
  • Austin Foodshed Investors: facilitates impact investing for Local Sustainable Food Companies in Austin Texas
  • Austin Technology Incubator: Deep tech incubator associate with the University of Texas at Austin that helps member companies commercialize their breakthrough inventions
  • Beam: Created by Women@Austin. Nonprofit angel network aimed at funding female-founded startups in Texas. Provide opportunities, education, and community to female founders.
  • Black Women Tech Talk: Collective of Black Women Tech Founders created to identify, support, and encourage black women to build the next billion-dollar business
  • Center for Social Innovation: The Center for Social Innovation is home to Austin’s social innovation ecosystem. Nonprofits, social enterprises, city innovation leaders and their neighbors gather and collaborate in the space.
  • DivInc: Pre-accelerator that operate a 12-week program for underrepresented tech founders
  • Impact Hub Austin: provides co-work space, education, and events for social impact start-ups. Additionally, it periodically runs topical accelerator programs, for example, the Affordable Housing Accelerator.
  • Mass Challenge: Global network of innovators looking to solve massive problems. Texas program provides entrepreneurs with resources to grow through the application process in three tracks: Safety & Security (Austin), Space Commercialization, and Sports Tech
  • Mission Capital: runs a social enterprise accelerator and provides business growth and related consulting, training, and other services to area nonprofits, and is also the local chapter of Social Venture Partners, venture philanthropy, and impact investing network more than 100 individuals strong in Austin.
  • Notley: A platform that brings entrepreneurial thinking into the nonprofit space. Provides seed capital or grants to organizations focused on social change. Focused on spreading knowledge, collaboration, and capital.
  • Relay:  Coworking space launched by Notley at the Center for Social Innovation. A community designed to enable scalable, social impact.
  • St. Edward’s University: driven by the university’s social justice mission, St. Edward’s is a driving force in Austin’s social impact community
  • Tarmac TX:  a non-profit, equity-free accelerator program that fosters tech solutions addressing social and environmental issues in Austin’s growing social innovation ecosystem. Tarmac TX equips social entrepreneurs with the necessary skillset and connections and helps them access funding to reach their intended impact. Tarmac TX is sponsored by 3M and resides at Relay Coworking – as part of the Center for Social Innovation.
  • Tech Ranch: Social impact incubator that equips entrepreneurs and ecosystems with insights, proven techniques, tools, and processes that develop both the community and the entrepreneur.
  • True Wealth Ventures is an early-stage venture capital fund investing in women-led companies in the high-growth, acquisitive markets of sustainable consumer and consumer health where women are driving the vast majority of purchase decisions.
  • University of Texas: UT has a number of social entrepreneurial activities including the McCombs Business School’s Center for Social Innovation and the Social Entrepreneurship Learning Lab Fellowship Program for undergraduates.
  • Un.Incubator: believes that the most uniquely qualified change-makers grow up with adversity, often feeling like misfits in the cultures they travel in. Through their 12-week cohort program they provide change-makers with the safe space they need to identify the struggles that drive their desire for change, and the resources to create sustainable change-making businesses.
  • Women @ Austin: Founded in 2014 to triple the number of women-founded companies, provide mentorship, and increase the visibility of female entrepreneurs in the community. Now accessed through Beam Founders.