Steve Case, J.D. Vance Urge Dallas Investors to Get Behind Local Startups

Riding on bright red bus across Dallas, former AOL chief executive and and co-founder Steve Case and his team visited some of the city's major hubs for startups and innovators. They had breakfast with some of Dallas' biggest names and wealthiest residents and then headed to an urban farm that's sprung up on the campus of Paul Quinn College in southern Dallas. The whirlwind tour of Dallas was the latest stop of Rise of the Rest, a nationwide effort to spotlight entrepreneurship and spark investment in cities outside of the coasts. Since 2014, Case has traveled about 8,000 miles to 33 cities from Phoenix to Lancaster, Penn., to Detroit. He was joined Monday by J.D. Vance, author of best-selling memoir Hillbilly Elegy and managing partner of Rise of the Rest's investment fund.Case said his message is simple: Great ideas and great entrepreneurs are born everywhere. He would like to see investors take that to heart, too.Rise of the Rest launched a $150 million venture fund that invests in early-stage companies. It's backed by entrepreneurs and investors, including Jeff Bezos, Amazon founder and chief executive; Eric Schmidt, former executive chairman of Google's parent company Alphabet; and Meg Whitman, former chief executive of Hewlett Packard Enterprise.On Monday, the bus ride began at Old Parkland, a historic hospital that Dallas real estate billionaire Harlan Crow converted into offices for some of Dallas' high-flying investors. The breakfast gathered together startup founders and big names, such as Dallas Federal Reserve President Rob Kaplan, former Dallas mayor and former U.S. trade representative Ron Kirk and former president and CEO of the United Way of Metropolitan Dallas Jennifer Sampson.  Continue reading...