Venture Dallas is packing up from the George W. Bush Presidential Center at Southern Methodist University and setting up shop at Old Parkland, the Oak Lawn office campus that has quietly become ground zero for North Texas finance. The sixth annual conference will take place at the historic campus on Oct. 22, organizers say, putting founders and financiers inside the same walls as some of the region's deepest capital pools.
The move is deliberate. According to The Dallas Morning News, Venture Dallas co-founder and chairman Aaron Pierce said the event is taking its mission to another level with the change of venue. Pierce, who is also a partner at Perot Jain, described the shift as an attempt to create what organizers call a more intentional experience for attendees, trading a single sprawling venue for a multi-stage format spread across Old Parkland's historic spaces, including the Debate Chamber and the Pecan Room.
This year's conference will feature more stages than in previous years, with curated industry tracks designed to bring innovators and investors together across Dallas's growing venture capital ecosystem, the report notes. Founded in 2019 as a volunteer-led nonprofit by local investors including Pierce and Bryan Chambers, Venture Dallas set out to connect high-growth North Texas startups with national venture capital, according to Dallas Innovates. The inaugural gathering in September 2019 drew 241 attendees, with 39 percent representing venture capital or private equity firms, a number that grew past 400 participants by 2022.
A Campus Built on Old Money and New Capital
Old Parkland itself carries a layered history. Crow Holdings acquired the historic 1913 Parkland Hospital site in 2006 and began restoring the original building, known as Old Main, about two decades ago, transforming a vacant public hospital into what The Dallas Morning News describes as one of Dallas's most coveted office spots. The campus is now home to family offices and investment firms, and Crow Holdings maintains its own headquarters there.
The timing amplifies the venue's profile. The New York Stock Exchange opened its physical NYSE Texas headquarters at Old Parkland just weeks earlier, on August 27, with a closing bell ceremony that included Texas Governor Greg Abbott, according to the Texas Governor's Office. That launch followed NYSE Texas's electronic debut in March 2025, and it cements Old Parkland's status as a hub in the three-way exchange rivalry nicknamed Y'all Street, which also includes the Texas Stock Exchange and Nasdaq Texas, as Hoodline has previously reported.
Venture Dallas already has ties running through that ecosystem. Perot Jain, the venture firm Pierce co-founded, opened a 4,200-square-foot office at Old Parkland East in January, a buildout Hoodline traced through state filings tied to 4030 Maple Avenue. Space-focused venture firm Balerion Space Ventures also established its Dallas headquarters at Old Parkland in April while closing a $200 million fund, joining a cluster of defense and tech investors on the campus. Crow Holdings has kept building to meet the demand, announcing plans in March for a 250,000-square-foot second-phase expansion of Old Parkland East across three new buildings after the first phase neared full occupancy.
Who's Taking the Stage
Organizers have already locked in a lineup that spans health tech, biotech, crypto and aerospace. Confirmed speakers include Stephen Gillett, chairman and CEO of AI health startup Verily; Jackson Moses, founder and managing partner of aerospace and defense investment firm Silent Ventures; and Lane Kasselman, co-CEO of crypto financial services company Blockchain.com. Organizers say more speaker announcements are still to come.
The conference's speaker roster has carried weight before. Past speakers have included Mark Cuban, Colossal Biosciences co-founder and CEO Ben Lamm, and Elaine Agather, along with Andrew Yaffe. Another past speaker, James Lee, founded and now runs the Texas Stock Exchange, which received formal SEC registration approval in fall 2025 and is targeting the start of trading operations in Dallas this year — a timeline Hoodline has tracked.
Riding a National AI Wave
The relocation also lands amid a broader surge in venture activity nationally. Global venture capital investment reached $512 billion in 2025, with artificial intelligence deals accounting for more than half of total deal value, according to PitchBook data released in January. That AI-driven rebound gives added weight to Venture Dallas's push to connect North Texas founders directly with the capital now clustering at Old Parkland, even as overall venture fundraising nationally remains constrained per the same PitchBook figures.
Venture Dallas has lined up sponsors including Corient, The University of Texas at Dallas, and J.P. Morgan for the October event, and tickets are already on sale. Whether the campus's smaller, historic rooms can deliver the high-touch networking organizers are promising remains to be seen once founders and financiers actually fill the Debate Chamber and Pecan Room this fall.
