Dot

Company description

Dot is a software-only campus shuttle tracking platform built to connect drivers and students in real time without needing dedicated GPS hardware on every vehicle — drivers' own phones serve as the tracking device. The goal is to replace the anxious, uncertain wait for a campus shuttle (especially in South Texas heat) with the confidence of knowing exactly when a ride will arrive, turning wasted waiting time into time spent productively indoors. The company is starting with its home campus, UTRGV, with plans to scale to other universities and eventually to hospitals, industrial parks, airports, and corporate campuses. Dot is a graduate of a 2025 Startup Texas cohort, the accelerator program sponsored by the Brownsville Community Improvement Corporation (BCIC) in partnership with UTRGV's Entrepreneurship and Commercialization Center (ECC), and applied for a follow-on Startup Texas Advancement Fund grant in November 2025.

Co-founders Esteban Zavala and Francisco Orta Bazán are UTRGV students who built Dot out of their own frustration with an unreliable campus shuttle system, founding the company in November 2024. Orta Bazán previously did undergraduate research through UTRGV's EFAS program (studying X-ray irradiation sterilization techniques for the Mexican fruit fly) before transferring in and pursuing a bachelor's degree in cybersecurity — a technical background he's since brought to bear on Dot's platform.

Founders: Esteban Zavala (CEO, Co-Founder) and Francisco Orta Bazán (Co-Founder)

Program: 2025 StartUp Texas Accelerator; applied to the Startup Texas Advancement Fund