There’s another spoke on the CodeLaunch wheel, and it will make a meaningful impact on the startup community!
The CodeLaunch Fuel Fund is an investment opportunity that will help further accelerate high-performing CodeLaunch finalists. This quarter, the CodeLaunch Fuel Fund invested in CodeLaunch DFW 2019 finalist Charachorder and CodeLaunch DFW 2021 winner AUTIX™.
CodeLaunch Founder Jason W. Taylor is the Managing Director of the CodeLaunch Fuel Fund. He works alongside Improving CEO Curtis Hite to decide which startups the company wants to invest in. They plan to evaluate startups from the CodeLaunch community once each quarter.
“Having started CodeLaunch with a dream of impacting startups a decade ago here in DFW and to see it now travel throughout the US and world, being the managing director of a real early-stage venture fund is a dream come true,” Jason said.
Charachorder Founder Riley Keen said his CodeLaunch experience was a huge milestone for the company. They started with only a prototype and idea, and now only three years later their biggest issue is meeting customer demand.
“This fund will help us finance the inventory so we can make products faster and get them into the hands of customers,” he said. “There are a lot of amazing startups that go through the competition, so it’s a huge honor to be chosen for one of the first Fuel Fund investments.”
Riley said he is excited that they now have this official partnership with CodeLaunch since it accelerated Charachorder so intensely.
“CodeLaunch was a huge milestone for our company,” he said. “It helped us get attention, credibility, and presence that allowed us to launch multiple products and get us exposure to get more investments. We also got to meet with other entrepreneurs and network.”
AUTIX Founder & CEO, Jake Hamann has also seen a lot of success since he graced the CodeLaunch stage. Jake said the investment will assist in bringing awareness to AUTIX as the team travels to the SEMA tradeshow in early November as a Top 15 semifinalist for their Launch Pad pitch competition. This event is the largest in the world for automotive manufacturers and distributors, which is a major audience they want to attract.
“Our CodeLaunch victory last November has helped us make significant traction not just in the DFW area, but nationally,” said Hamann. “We love to promote the entire CodeLaunch experience everywhere we go, so the decision to take this investment made a lot of sense and we’re extremely grateful to be one of the initial recipients.”
The goal of the CodeLaunch Fuel Fund is to see a positive return on investments, then use that money to increase the size of the fund.
“We have a growing stable of rockstar finalists,” Jason said. “And Improving is helping CodeLaunch have a bigger impact.”
The next CodeLaunch competition will be in Dallas on November 16th. Learn more here.