Texas Christian University Network Aims to Build Investment Community in Fort Worth

Rodney D’Souza and Andrew Hicks saw a problem for investors in Fort Worth: There’s little funding for early-stage startups, but there’s also a lack of good deal flow. 

D’Souza, the managing director of the Institute for Entrepreneurship & Innovation at TCU and Hicks, a program manager for the TCU Horned Frog Investment Network, started a network to connect deals to investors.  

Since March, the Horned Frog Investment Network has evaluated 276 opportunities, invited 8 companies to pitch, made 2 investments and has 2 investments in consideration.

The group is designed to function as a hybrid between an angel investment network and venture capital firm, D’Souza said. Instead of entrepreneurs approaching and pitching the group, the network finds the deals by going to accelerators, venture capitalists or other angel investors to source the deals.