At the peak of the internet and technology boom in 2000 Texas had become a premier venture capital destination. After the ensuing collapse in the technology sector venture capital firms began a steady retreat from the state that led to a serious erosion in both the relative and absolute amount of venture capital Texas companies receive. In 2005 Governor Perry and the State Legislature created the Texas Emerging Technology Fund (TETF) to simultaneously spur innovation in disruptive technologies at Texas universities and provide seed capital to companies commercializing the intellectual property emanating from those universities. Robert Rough, Managing Director and CIO of Pillar Capital Management, will detail how the confluence of these factors has materially altered venture capital’s cost of capital in Texas.

Robert M. Rough is the Managing Director and Chief Investment Officer of Pillar Capital Management, a Dallas-based venture capital firm focused on investing in early-stage Texas-based technology companies previously funded by the state’s Texas Emerging Technology Fund and other venture capital opportunities. He has been an investor, senior executive, consultant and board member in technology, service, manufacturing, distribution, and retail companies for more than twenty years. The majority of Mr. Rough’s consulting and management experience has been with portfolio companies of venture capital and private equity groups such as Kleiner Perkins, Ballast Point Ventures and Thompson Investments. Mr. Rough has been involved in over twenty completed transactions, often with primary responsibility for all aspects of the transaction, including post transaction integration.

Mr. Rough graduated from Dartmouth College in Hanover, NH and earned his MBA from the Harvard Business School in Boston, MA.