A new venture in Texas is turning heads as an unexpected haven for the tech industry’s elite, thanks to the backing of several billionaires.

Proto-Town, a burgeoning 1,200-acre development in Lockhart, is swiftly emerging as a haven for so-called “start-up cowboys.”

This unique town offers a blend of ranch-style living with opportunities to innovate in cutting-edge technologies, including drones, solar panels, and nuclear energy.

The ambitious $100 million project is partially funded by venture capitalist Josh Kushner, who is married to supermodel Karlie Kloss and is the brother-in-law of Ivanka Trump. Other notable investors include hedge fund manager Bill Ackman and Fred Ehrsam, co-founder of Coinbase.

Currently, 12 companies have established themselves within this expansive ranch environment, working on projects ranging from autonomous bulldozers to drones as large as basketball courts.

While Proto-Town is drawing in a new wave of innovators, it remains a stark contrast to the polished environment of Silicon Valley.

Co-founder Josh Josh Farahzad describes the town as a ‘man-campus’ which has adopted ‘a frat-house atmosphere’, centered on nonstop projects rather than partying and booze.

When they aren’t tearing around the campus on dirt bikes, the so-called ‘startup cowboys’ live together, split between a lone ranch-style home on the property and surrounding trailers and work from morning to night using the robotics facility and drone-building site. 

Proto-Town, a 1,200-acre campus in Lockhart, Texas, offers ranch-style living alongside the chance to develop the technology of tomorrow, including drones, solar panels and even nuclear energy

Proto-Town is backed in part by venture capitalist Josh Kushner, who is Ivanka Trump’s brother-in-law. He is pictured with wife Karlie Kloss

They often eat as a group and pass their downtime riding dirt bikes, making trips to Lockhart for barbecue or heading into downtown Austin for dancing. 

‘I don’t have to shop for groceries, I don’t have to drive anywhere, my dogs don’t need leashes,’ Daniel Weddle, who lives in the trailer park with his partner and two dogs, told the WSJ. ‘It’s a very simple life.’

Weddle, 41, left his hometown in Indiana and quit running an event venue to move to Proto-Town, where he is testing a machine designed to 3D-print homes from dirt and clay.

He lugs a five-gallon water tank into his trailer every morning, lets his dog roam freely across the site and eats lunch with other founders day after day. 

Even becoming a resident of Proto-Town is like a college fraternity rush, with prospective companies living and working there for just a few days before founders decide if they make the cut. 

Early-stage startups often pay only for room and board, while more established companies – including a new multibillion-dollar Samsung semiconductor facility – lease land to test their products. 

Proto-Town founders Farahzad, 26, and Merle Nye, 28, told Bloomberg that they wanted the ranch to reflect the idea of the US as a titan of cowboys and innovators. 

Farahzad said that in Silicon Valley, many who share that view have aligned themselves with the Trump administration, something he said has no place in the ‘man campus.’

So-called ‘start-up cowboys’ live on the property and work from morning to night using the robotics facility and drone-building site

 So far 12 companies have joined the ranch ecosystem, where founders are building everything from autonomous bulldozers to basketball court-sized drones

Instead, he said Proto-Town is apolitical, adding that it is an effort to return to the ‘timeless virtues that made America really dynamic.’ 

‘There’s hardware and there’s real people,’ Evan Lipofsky, a 22-year-old college dropout living in the community and working on solar-powered cooling panels, told Bloomberg.

‘Here it’s not just LinkedIn and fake buttons that you’re clicking,’ he added.

Companies on the grounds include Bedrock Robotics, founded by ex-Waymo engineers, which builds autonomous construction technology, according to Bloomberg.

CEO Boris Sofman visited the site last year looking for land to test autonomous construction machinery, including excavators that dig without human control, and needed more space than San Francisco allowed. He was sold on Proto-Town.   

In a nearby shipping container sits Ethan Blagg’s headquarters for Dynamo, a company working to build gigantic drones capable of lifting heavy materials like generators and telecom towers.

Past some walking trails is Terran Robotics, Weddle’s company, which is testing tools like a robotic hammer to compact dirt into adobe homes. 

The founders said Proto-Town is apolitical, adding that it is an effort to return to the ‘timeless virtues that made America really dynamic’

Evan Lipofsky is 22-year-old college dropout living in the community and working on solar-powered cooling panels

Oklo, a nuclear technology company, revealed it would build a test reactor in Proto-Town to ramp up production of isotopes used in cancer therapy and manufacturing, much of which is currently imported. 

The company broke ground on the project in September and plans to bring it online in July, according to Bloomberg. 

‘We will have gone from a greenfield to a reactor splitting atoms in less than 10 months,’ CEO Jake Dewitte told the outlet. ‘That’s insane. That’s Manhattan Project-era speed.’ 

In August, Proto-Town reached a deal with Caldwell County setting minimal building rules for the ranch in exchange for exemption from future regulations.

But the bizarre commune began with two Duke friends who had prior startup experience and a newfound connection to John Cyruer, a longtime Texas politician. 

In 2022, the town of Lockhart was a leading contender to host a $100 billion semiconductor facility for Micron, but the chipmaker ultimately chose to build in New York.

Farahzad recalled his vision at the time: ‘We’re going to build a city.’ 

They saw their opportunity and launched Proto-Town with Cyruer in 2024, starting with just under six figures in funding. 

Last month, the project was valued at around $100 million after its first fundraising round, which raised $20 million from Ackman, Kushner and Ehrsam

Members of Proto-Town often eat as a group and pass their downtime riding dirt bikes around the land

Since then it has thrived, although it has not always been smooth sailing. 

The founders initially faced resistance from the county judge among other problems, including being forced to live in a scorpion-infested ranch house during the town’s early days.

The pitch ‘was something along the lines of like, if you’re going to die one day, you should live trying crazy things,’ Nye told Bloomberg.

Nye explained that tech hubs like Silicon Valley were too restrictive and expensive, arguing that having everything readily available – testing grounds, housing and manufacturing facilities – eases the stress of launching a business. 

‘It filters for people who really want to put their heads down and figure out their product or company,’ Nye told Bloomberg.

‘You’re so unconstrained in terms of the physical space out here that you can think in a different pattern than you could in a warehouse in the middle of a city,’ he added.

The founders also believed in a build-at-all-cost approach, citing China’s manufacturing strength as an inspiration and sharing their own aspirations to build an ‘American Shenzhen.’

Shenzhen, known as China’s ‘Silicon Valley of Hardware,’ has evolved from a small fishing village into a global technology hub of over 17 million people in just 40 years. 

Last month, the project was valued at around $100 million after its first fundraising round, which raised $20 million from Ackman, Kushner and Ehrsam.