AUSTIN, Texas — Three years ago, Plug and Play had no footprint in Texas.
Now, inside a 3,000-square-foot innovation hub in Cedar Park, founders are meeting with investors, major corporations and city leaders — all chasing the connection that could turn a good idea into a real company.
“It’s a huge day,” said Ehab Gabr, CEO of healthcare technology startup Sigmatic, during the Plug and Play Expo in Cedar Park.
For Gabr, it is personal. Sigmatic is one of the companies that grew out of the Plug and Play ecosystem.
The company has built what Gabr calls an “AI-native operating platform” for hospitals, surgery centers, and outpatient facilities. Its goal is to automate the routine, often tedious work that can slow down healthcare workers and operations.
“Plug and Play provided, with the help of Cedar Park, both as partners, an incredible ecosystem,” Gabr said.
That ecosystem is what Kevin Farjallah came to build.
“My vision is to really make Cedar Park an international hub for startups,” said Farjallah, director of Plug and Play Cedar Park.
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Plug and Play operates around the world, connecting early-stage companies with the large corporations that can become customers, partners, or investors. In Cedar Park, Farjallah says that effort is beginning to show results.
Five startups have relocated to the city to be closer to the program, he said. More than four investments have gone into startups Plug and Play helped bring to Cedar Park.
The facility itself is designed as a place where those collisions can happen — founders, investors and corporate leaders in the same room, working through what it takes to move a company from concept to scale.
For Cedar Park, the pitch is simple: make it easier for companies to build.
“I think because we’re really easy to do business with,” said Arthur Jackson, the city’s chief economic development officer.
Jackson says that ease extends across city departments and into the mayor, council and economic-development leadership.
“They get it,” he said.
After three years focused on advanced manufacturing, robotics and AI, Plug and Play and Cedar Park are now making their next move: aerospace and defense.
“It was really the official announcement of our aerospace and defense vertical,” Jackson said at the expo. “We really knew the next industry vertical to take off was going to be around aerospace and defense.”
It is a significant bet — and one aimed at a region already riding a wave of innovation.
Three years ago, Plug and Play was not in Texas. Today, its Cedar Park hub is trying to turn introductions into investments, ideas into companies, and a growing suburb into a startup destination with global reach.