SACC Austin: State of Venture in Texas

State of Venture in the U.S. + Texas A fireside with Eric Engineer, General Partner at S3 Ventures.

What VCs are actually funding in 2026 and what Nordic founders need to know before raising in the U.S.

For one evening on a downtown Austin rooftop, SACC Texas brings the Nordic-American business community face-to-face with one of Texas's most active venture investors.

Eric Engineer, General Partner at S3 Ventures, will walk us through the State of Venture in the U.S. + Texas what's getting funded, what isn't, how valuations are moving, and what international founders need to understand before approaching U.S. capital. The 25-minute presentation is followed by an open Q&A and rooftop networking with the SACC Texas community.

What you'll take away

• A clear read on U.S. venture in 2026 deal volume, valuations, and where capital is flowing
• Texas-specific insights: how Austin and Dallas compare to coastal hubs
• What VCs actually want to see from international founders entering the U.S.
• Direct, in-room access to a top-tier Texas investor and to the Nordic-American business community

Who this is for Nordic founders, operators, investors and executives building or scaling in the U.S. And anyone serious about how venture capital is evolving in Texas.

About our Speaker: Eric Engineer

Eric Engineer is a General Partner at S3 Ventures, which he joined in 2018. He currently serves on the boards of AllStacks, Arpio, Kamiwaza, Mavvrik, MontyCloud, Opine, QbDVision, RepVue, Rest, and Videate. Previous board roles include Briggo (acquired by Coca-Cola), Sumatra (acquired by Stripe), Interplay Learning, Liquibase, and VUV Analytics.

Before S3, Eric was CEO of Invodo (acquired by CoCreativ in 2018) and a Partner at Sevin Rosen Funds in Dallas. He began his career at Trilogy Software in Austin and held product management, product planning and enterprise sales roles at Microsoft. Eric holds an MBA from Harvard Business School, and an MSc in Distributed Systems and a BA cum laude in Computer Science from Rice University in Houston, where he was raised.