dallas-startup
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Clifton Harness
Clifton Harness is the co-founder and CEO of TestFit, a Dallas-based real estate feasibility platform that lets developers, architects and contractors solve site plans in seconds instead of weeks. A University of Texas at Austin architecture graduate who grew up around his father's development business, Harness spent two years doing site plan test fits at StreetLights Residential before teaming up with his college roommate, software developer Ryan Griege, to automate the repetitive work. TestFit has raised roughly $22 million, led by a $20 million Series A from Parkway Venture Capital, and Harness has become a leading and often provocative voice on generative design in the AEC industry.
Colin Perry
Colin Perry is the founder and CEO of Perry Weather, a Dallas-based weather safety platform he started in 2013 after studying meteorology at Texas A&M. What began as a weather consulting firm became a software and hardware company that helps more than 5,000 organizations - including schools, cities, golf courses, and pro leagues like the NFL, MLB, and PGA of America - monitor hazardous conditions, automate their safety policies, and keep compliance records. The company has raised roughly $21 million, including a $15 million Series B in 2024, and has sent more than 200 million weather alerts.
Ed Stevens
Ed Stevens is the founder and CEO of Scoot, a Dallas-based platform that positions itself as an AI sales environment where buyers, sellers, and live AI agents meet in real time. A serial entrepreneur with more than 25 years in retail and software, he previously founded and led the ecommerce fulfillment company Shopatron (acquired by Vista Equity Partners in 2015) and served as COO of Kibo Commerce. Scoot began life as Preciate, an appreciation and relationship platform, before rebranding and raising a $12M Series A in early 2023. Stevens is also an author, board member, and investor.
Gabriel Pinchev
Gabriel Pinchev is the founder and CEO of FieldPulse, a Dallas-based field service management software company he started in 2015 to help HVAC, plumbing, electrical, and other trade contractors run their businesses from a single app. An outsider to the trades who studied at SMU's Cox School of Business, he built FieldPulse into a platform used by thousands of service businesses, raising roughly $79 million across Series A through C, including a $50 million Series C in August 2025 led by Fulcrum Equity Partners. He is known for staying close to customers, talking with contractors daily, and pushing the company into AI-powered tools like Operator AI and Chat AI.
Jordan Graft
Jordan Graft is the founder and CEO of Highway, a Dallas-based freight technology company he started in 2022 to solve carrier identity and fraud in trucking. A three-time CEO before 40, he previously led TriumphPay to become the largest payer of freight invoices in the US, co-founded the software shop CrateBind, and worked in private equity at TA Associates and investment banking at J.P. Morgan. Highway coined the category of Carrier Identity and now partners with the largest US freight brokerage, C.H. Robinson.
Tim Moss
Tim Moss is the Chairman and CEO of Talkmap, a Dallas conversational-intelligence company that turns raw call-center calls and chats into structured, real-time customer insight using patented AI. A Texas A&M political science graduate with more than 30 years in technology and financial services, he previously ran the turnaround of the $800M+ carrier services company Syniverse as COO, launched a new organization as an Ericsson senior vice president, and founded IMG Venture Group and the consultancy Integrity Management Group. Talkmap raised an $8 million Series A led by Stage1 Ventures in February 2022, part of roughly $17.6 million total.
Trey Gibson
Trey Gibson is the co-founder and CEO of SPOTIO, a Dallas-area field sales software company he started in 2014 after a visibility crisis on his own outside sales team, where reps worked territories blind and managers had no idea what was happening in the field. A Texas Tech MBA who spent his early career running foam insulation and construction businesses in the DFW area, Gibson built SPOTIO into a mobile-first platform used by thousands of field reps for GPS activity tracking, territory mapping, and sales engagement. He raised a $4.5M Series A from Ballast Point Ventures in 2020 and now hosts the 'From the Field' podcast, interviewing sales leaders about how modern teams sell, scale, and win.
Zachary Irwin
Zachary Irwin is the co-founder and CEO of Downstream, a Dallas-based marketplace that lets contractors book equipment rentals, dumpsters, portable toilets, and site services with a few taps - the way you might order a pizza. Started in 2022 as 'Trash Gurus' and rebuilt into an AI-driven procurement platform with 100,000+ listings, Downstream raised an $8M Series A in November 2025 co-led by Brick & Mortar Ventures and Moneta Ventures. Irwin came to construction's least glamorous corner from an unlikely place: years as a healthcare-software (Epic) consultant building oncology and pharmacy systems across 22 states.
Craig Peus
Craig R. Peus is the CEO of illuno, a Plano, Texas technology company building the first purpose-built staffing marketplace for off-duty law enforcement officers. Backed by Mark Cuban Companies, illuno lets businesses hire certified, on-duty-grade police officers through an app in minutes, while handling compliance, insurance, and payments and giving departments visibility into officer moonlighting. Peus brings a wide-ranging executive resume - a Stanford biology degree, leadership roles in energy midstream (Gravity Midstream), agtech (Tree3), and capital advisory (Blossom Street Capital) - to a sector he argues is two decades behind on technology.
Cameron Johnson
Cameron Johnson is the founder and CEO of Nickson, a Dallas-based furniture-as-a-service startup that furnishes an entire apartment with 250-plus items in as little as three hours, by app. A former institutional real estate investor who spent 15 years at firms like Goldman Sachs, Walton Street Capital and Greystar before earning an MBA at Harvard, Johnson noticed renters trying to 'rent the model apartment' on tours and built a company around that impulse. In 2021 Nickson raised a $12 million Series A led by Pendulum, the firm co-founded by Barack Obama's former financial adviser Robbie Robinson, with Motley Fool Ventures, Revolution's Rise of the Rest and Backstage Capital joining in.
Will Pacio
Will Pacio is the co-founder and CEO of Expo, a Dallas-based AI platform that pulls a restaurant's scattered data - POS, inventory, labor, guest feedback - into one dashboard operators can talk to. A Stanford psychology grad who walked away from a planned medical career to cook on the opening team at Thomas Keller's Per Se, he ran IT for the Thomas Keller Restaurant Group, founded the fast-casual chain Spice Kit, then built the restaurant-staffing marketplace Pared before spinning it into Expo. His pitch: bring the 'Moneyball' approach to multi-unit restaurants so non-technical owners can make decisions with data instead of gut feel.