frisco-texas
(5)
The Beauty Roll-Up Betting the Next Category King Is Hiding in Plain Sight
Performance Beauty Group has assembled a portfolio around the eye - then built the factories, data loops and retail relationships to make small brands travel. Its wager is that discipline, not endless launches, can turn founder energy into durable category authority.
Ganesh Shankar
Ganesh Shankar is the co-founder and CEO of Responsive (formerly RFPIO), a strategic response management platform that helps companies answer RFPs, security questionnaires, and due diligence requests faster. He started the company in 2015 with two colleagues after growing frustrated that responding to proposals ate up nearly a third of his time as a product manager. Under his leadership the company grew to more than 550 employees and 2,000+ customers, including dozens of Fortune 100 firms, while raising only about $27 million.
Maggie Wu
Maggie Wu is the CEO and co-founder of VelaFi, a stablecoin-powered payments infrastructure company that helps businesses move money across borders faster and cheaper than traditional banking rails. Born in China and now based in Frisco, Texas, she built her name in Latin America, where her earlier venture TruBit grew to more than 300,000 users. In January 2026 VelaFi raised a $20 million Series B led by XVC and Ikuyo, with backing from Alibaba Investment and BAI Capital, pushing total funding past $40 million as the company expands from Latin America into the United States and Asia.
Michael Wilson
Michael G. Wilson is the founder and CEO of Healthcare Highways, a Frisco, Texas company that builds high-performance provider networks for self-funded employer health plans. He was a five-time All-American gymnast at the University of Oklahoma, the 1979 NCAA floor exercise champion, and made the 1980 U.S. Olympic team that never competed because of the Moscow boycott. Over more than four decades in healthcare, he has founded or built PPO Oklahoma, Corporate Health Plans of America, Texas TrueChoice, Century Healthcare, and Healthcare Highways.
Siva Lakshmanan
Siva Lakshmanan is the CEO of DeepHow, a Detroit-based AI company that turns tribal shop-floor know-how into searchable, multilingual training video. He joined in November 2024 after running Antuit.ai through its acquisition by Zebra Technologies. His pitch is unglamorous by design: preserve the expertise of the retiring half of the manufacturing workforce before it walks out the door.