Jacksonville startup founder relocates to Austin in search of tech investors and early-stage capital (Courtesy of the Jacksonville Business Journal) — Jacksonville native Sean Scott (pictured above) built his startup on the First Coast, but to grow it, he had to leave.
The 18-year-old founder of UniDesk, an artificial intelligence-powered IT ticketing platform, last week decamped to Austin, Texas, chasing customers and early-stage funding — both harder to find where he was born and raised.
Like most founders, Scott created UniDesk to fix a problem.
He was the IT intern at The Foundation Academy, a local private school. Teachers would hand him laptops, marked by sticky notes and vague descriptions of what needed help. To help streamline the process, he built a digital dashboard.
A month before graduating last year, Scott spun his startup beyond a purely education application and into a help desk for businesses at-large — specifically targeting churches, who he said have a “blind spot” with technology.
Scott said his decision to leave Jacksonville — if only temporarily — was driven by what UniDesk needs next to survive and grow.
“Raising capital in Jacksonville, a lot of the investors here are life science investors, not really tech investors,” he said. “Austin, Texas is, I would say, the startup ecosystem outside of Silicon Valley.”
UniDesk enters a crowded IT service market, dominated by much larger and more entrenched players like ServiceNow and Freshdesk. Those platforms, Scott said, are often priced out of reach for smaller organizations.
Plus, while his competitors offer AI services that push their cost into the tens of thousands of dollars, UniDesk is positioned at a much lower threshold — currently $3,000 annually.
The platform has early customers and a clear market niche. Yet scaling requires capital and connections, both areas Jacksonville struggles in, particularly compared to cities like Austin.
Locally, Scott said he found support for product development but few technology-focused investors willing to write those early seed checks. That gap drove Scott’s move, where he plans to spend the next several months working to raise $250,000 in seed funding.
Scott said he plans to return to Jacksonville later on this year — hopefully with new capital and customers in-hand.
Young founders and startups leaving Jacksonville in search of funding isn’t a new occurrence.
“In reality, the startup scene around here is pretty lacking, in a sense of, there isn’t enough funding being thrown around,” said Dave Eyerly, founder of AcceleratePV, a startup education nonprofit in Nocatee.
UniDesk was one of the startups that recently underwent AcceleratePV’s education program.
It was Eyerly who convinced the young founder to leave Jacksonville and get that early funding he needs.
“To be honest, I have had 14 companies come through my program,” Eyerly said. “Four of them have received funding. Of the funding that they’ve received, the majority of it has still come from outside our community.”
Photo courtesy of UniDesk