Many of Austin's homegrown startups got an early start to SXSW Interactive during the Austin Startup Crawl on March 7.

The event, sponsored by San Antonio–based cloud computing company Rackspace, took attendees on a tour of about a dozen Austin startup offices, including HomeAway, Ordoro, Mass Relevance, Tasktop and Black Locus. Startup employees pitched their technologies and products to attendees, which included other startup companies, such as custom table tennis paddle maker Uberpong, which manufactures its paddles in Austin.

Tech accelerator Capital Factory presented the event, and its offices at 701 Brazos Street hosted a plethora of startups, such as Ticketbud, Infochimps, UMeTime and WhaleShark Media.

This is just the first of many SXSW events that are promoting Austin's startup culture. The first day of SXSW Interactive, March 8, brings several panels focusing on Austin's startup success, including "5 Austin Startups That Can Get Profitable on <$1 million" and "Move Your Startup to Austin For Free!"

The weekend brings a March 9 panel that includes Susan Davenport, senior vice president of Global Technology Strategies of the Great Austin Chamber of Commerce, and accelerator Tech Ranch Founder Kevin Koym to discuss Austin's startup scene.

The chamber's Technology Partnership, Startup Texas and The Startup America Partnership are hosting the second annual "Celebration of America's Startups" event March 9 at 7:30 p.m. At the ACL Live at the Moody Theater.