VAQUERO LABS / FORT WORTH FOUNDRY FUND I / COMING SOON
Reindustrialize the frontier.
Fort Worth Foundry Fund I is an early-stage venture fund in development for the engineers and operators rebuilding American industrial capacity. We intend to back deep-tech, advanced-manufacturing, defense, and dual-use companies at the angel, pre-seed, and seed stages—with North Texas as a proving ground for companies built to scale nationally.
INVESTMENT MANDATE
Factories, systems, and technical advantage.
We are interested in the hard layer of the economy: the tools, components, infrastructure, and production systems that turn technical knowledge into sovereign capability and durable enterprise value.
- Advanced manufacturing
- Robotics, factory automation, additive and precision manufacturing, new materials, critical components, inspection, industrial tooling, and software that increases throughput, quality, or resilience.
- Defense & dual-use systems
- Autonomy, sensing, aerospace, cybersecurity, logistics, energy resilience, mission software, and technologies with credible commercial and national-security applications.
- Industrial AI & infrastructure
- Models, data assets, control systems, compute, energy, and secure digital infrastructure that improve how physical industries design, make, move, and maintain essential products.
- Technical & product diligence
- Architecture, bill of materials, manufacturability, supply-chain exposure, defensibility, unit economics, customer evidence, quality systems, and the path from prototype to repeatable production.
- Founder psychographics
- How founders reason under uncertainty, absorb technical and market evidence, recruit exceptional teams, communicate hard truths, allocate scarce capital, and respond when plans break.
- North Texas compounding
- We favor companies that can create specialized jobs, supplier density, intellectual property, production capacity, customers, or strategic capability across Fort Worth and the wider North Texas region.
CAPITAL FORMATION
Build the company and the cap table together.
For capital-intensive technology, financing architecture is part of product architecture. We want each round to fund a measurable reduction in technical, manufacturing, commercial, or regulatory risk while preserving enough ownership and flexibility to finance the next stage.
- Clean formation
- A legible fully diluted cap table, founder vesting, assigned intellectual property, a deliberate employee pool, documented SAFEs or notes, and no hidden side agreements that complicate the next round.
- Fit-for-stage capital
- Angel and pre-seed capital should prove the technical and customer thesis. Seed capital should establish repeatability. Equipment finance, non-dilutive programs, strategic capital, private credit, and growth equity should be considered when the asset and milestone justify them.
- Ownership with operating value
- We intend to syndicate alongside qualified operators, technical founders, emerging managers, family offices, strategic industry partners, and institutions that can contribute customers, talent, facilities, supply-chain access, or follow-on capital.
- Governance before scale
- Board and information rights, pro rata strategy, reserves, export-control and security requirements, financial controls, data rooms, and reporting should mature before a company needs them under pressure.
The regional goal is a new North Texas cap table: founders, employees, operators, family offices, emerging allocators, and institutions owning the next generation of industrial companies together. That is what we mean by syndicating next-generation wealth—broadening informed, compliant participation in company creation without sacrificing disciplined governance or founder velocity.
THE CAPITAL PATH
From early private markets to Y’all Street.
The fund’s intended entry point is early. The operating horizon is longer. We want founders to understand the financing system they are building toward before later-stage terms, ownership concentration, or governance debt remove their options.
- 01
Foundry
Founder capital, customer discovery, grants, angels, and pre-seed investors finance technical proof, intellectual property, and the first credible use case.
- 02
Build
Seed syndicates, co-investors, strategic partners, and early institutional capital finance productization, initial production, customer validation, and the team required to deliver.
- 03
Scale
Growth equity, equipment and project finance, private credit, non-dilutive programs, and commercial cash flow finance capacity, working capital, facilities, and market expansion.
- 04
Y’all Street
Companies that achieve the necessary scale, controls, governance, and reporting may pursue durable access to public capital through the Texas-centered and national market ecosystem.
Y’all Street is our shorthand for the growing Texas capital network around the Texas Stock Exchange, Nasdaq Texas, NYSE Texas, and the investors, advisers, and institutions that connect private companies to public markets.
Fort Worth Foundry Fund I and Vaquero Labs are not affiliated with or endorsed by these exchanges. A public listing is never assumed: eligibility, timing, venue, liquidity, and outcomes depend on the company, market conditions, regulators, and independent advisers.
We want technical company creation and capital creation to reinforce each other—from a disciplined first cap table to a company capable of serving customers, strengthening the industrial base, and earning access to deeper pools of capital.
Raising? Review our investment fitINVESTOR INTEREST
Join the Fort Worth Foundry Fund I list.
Tell us how you invest and the amount you may consider. This is an expression of interest, not a commitment.
Prefer email? ir@vaqueros.dev
Vaquero Labs, a Yeetum LLC company, will use these details to evaluate interest and contact you about Fort Worth Foundry Fund I. Do not send account numbers, identity documents, or other sensitive financial information.
Fort Worth Foundry Fund I is in development. This page is for market research and expressions of interest only. It is not an offer to sell or a solicitation to buy securities. Any offering would be made only through definitive documents and in accordance with applicable law.