Rio Grande Garage Doors
Garage doors · Brownsville
Wind rated coastal installs across the lower Valley. Built on a price transparency funnel rather than a phone number, which is still unusual in the trade.
Majority heldOperating
Tech enabled venture studio · Home services
The sector is fragmented, under capitalised and structurally under marketed. We build the operating infrastructure once, install it into a company, and participate in equity rather than in fees.
01 / Origination
Every company in the portfolio originated inside our own platform. Operators enter through Remote Contracting, a fee based engagement in which we build and run the business for ninety days. That engagement is the diligence. Those who demonstrate the capacity to convert demand, manage subcontracted labour and defend a margin are invited into a Talos structure, at which point the commercial relationship inverts: the fee ends and the equity begins.
An operator engages Remote Contracting. We select the service line and market from our own data, build the entity, brand, site and profile, install the CRM, introduce vetted crews and run the advertising for ninety days. They pay a fee. We take no equity and no percentage of any job.
Ninety days of live trading produces a dataset no interview replicates: conversion against forty eight qualified appointments, realised margin against quoted margin, crew retention, and performance in the month where demand is adequate and execution is not. The material signal resolves by week six.
Where both the operator and the unit economics clear our threshold, we offer a minority position. Fees cease. Platform provision continues unchanged across demand, reception, creative, supply, systems and working capital. Returns are realised through enterprise value rather than through invoicing the business we are meant to be building.
Second service line, second market, then the transition from owner operator to owner. Where fragmentation permits we pursue bolt on acquisition of adjacent books. Platform cost is sunk at group level, so the marginal cost of each addition declines while its contribution does not.
Demand is purchasable. Execution is not. We only own what we have already watched trade.
02 / Portfolio
Eighteen operators have launched through the platform. The portfolio is the subset where the operator cleared our threshold and the unit economics justified ownership. Each draws on a common demand engine, reception layer, supply network and reporting standard, so the difficult component is built once and installed repeatedly at declining marginal cost.
Wind rated coastal installs across the lower Valley. Built on a price transparency funnel rather than a phone number, which is still unusual in the trade.
Multi line exterior services into Hidalgo County residential and small commercial. The portfolio's test case for running three service lines under one brand.
Attic and wall foam into a market where cooling load is the largest household utility line. Rebate driven demand, which makes the advertising unusually efficient.
Retail replacement rather than insurance restoration, deliberately. Slower to scale and materially cleaner to own, with no adjuster in the revenue line.
Built once, installed repeatedly, at a marginal cost that declines with every company added.
03 / Platform
A home services business at four million in revenue cannot underwrite a marketing function, a reception desk, a creative studio and a data capability. A portfolio of them can. Each company accesses that infrastructure at group cost, a structural advantage unavailable to an independent operator at any price.
Paid acquisition and search presence run by one team across every portfolio company. Creative is produced centrally and tested across markets, so a winning angle in one city is deployed in five the following week.
A shared US reception layer answers every enquiry inside two to five minutes, qualifies it against the company's own criteria, and books it directly into the operator's calendar. Speed to lead is most of the result and no single company can staff it.
A vetted crew network with insurance and licence verified before the first job. Crews that work across several portfolio companies get continuity of volume, which is what buys the pricing the group runs on.
One CRM configuration, one proposal and invoicing flow, one reporting standard. An operator joining the group inherits a system that has already been through eighteen businesses rather than inventing one.
Working capital for materials, equipment and the gap between paying a crew and collecting from a homeowner. Growth capital where a second line or a second market is the right use of it.
Trade businesses sell at a discount when the owner is the business. We build them to be transferable from the first day, which is the difference between a job that pays well and an asset somebody will buy.
The contractor is not the bottleneck. The infrastructure around him is.
04 / Structure
The first is available to any operator able to fund a build. The second is available only to those who have completed the first. The delivered service is identical across both. What differs is the allocation of risk and the ownership of the outcome.
| Remote Contracting | Talos Trades Group | |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | A built and operated business, delivered to you | A company we own a position in and operate alongside you |
| What you pay | A one time fee for the build and ninety days of demand | Nothing. We hold equity instead |
| What we take | No equity, no royalty, no percentage of any job | A minority position, agreed before anything is built |
| Who owns the company | You, outright, from the first day | You, with us on the cap table |
| How we are paid | On delivery | On the company being worth more, years later |
| Who qualifies | Anyone who can fund the build | Operators who have already run one |
05 / Underwriting
We are not buying a trade, a territory or a brand. All three can be rebuilt in a fortnight. We are underwriting one person's ability to price a job honestly, hold that price on a phone call, and keep a crew that would rather work for them than for somebody else.
Ninety days through Remote Contracting with the numbers to show for it. We do not take equity in an idea, and we do not take equity in a first attempt.
Demand can be bought. Closing cannot. The single clearest predictor in our data is what an operator does with forty eight qualified appointments, and the spread between the best and worst is not small.
Operators who want a job that pays well are well served by the first arrangement. The second only works for somebody who intends to own something larger than their own calendar.
Enquiries
Operators currently inside Remote Contracting are reviewed at the end of the ninety day window. Established trade owners outside the programme are considered case by case, and the first conversation is about the numbers rather than the opportunity.
Talos Trades Group is an operating company, not a fund, and nothing on this page is an offer of securities or an invitation to invest.