Editor's note: Welcome to another Monday edition of Innovators to Know. Today I'm introducing you to three Houstonians to read up about — three individuals behind recent innovation and startup news stories in Houston as reported by InnovationMap. Learn more about them and their recent news below by clicking on each article.
Ryan DuChanois, co-founder and CEO at Solidec
Ryan DuChanois pitched his company Solidec at CERAWeek, and took home a prize of $25,000. Photo via Solidec/LinkedIn
For the third year, the Greater Houston Partnership's Houston Energy Transition Institute hosted its startup pitch competition at CERAWeek by S&P Global. A dozen startups walked away with recognition — and three some with cash prizes.
Houston-based Solidec won the top prize for the TEX-E pitches. The company, which is working on a platform to produce chemicals from captured carbon, won first place and $25,000. Ryan DuChanois, co-founder and CEO, pitched at the event.
"This prize will help us scale up our technology from the lab at Rice University and ultimately fulfill our mission of capturing yesterday's emissions and generating tomorrow's fuels," the company writes in a post on LinkedIn. Read more.
Stephanie Campbell and Diana Murakhovskaya, co-founders and general partners of The Artemis Fund
Diana Murakhovskaya and Stephanie Campbell are co-founders of The Artemis Fund, a Houston-based, female founder-focused venture capital firm that just announced its $36 million fund II. Photo courtesy of Artemis
In 2019, Stephanie Campbell saw an opportunity in the market — investing in women-led startups, something that wasn't happening at the volume it should have been.
"When we looked around, we really wanted to solve the problem of why women only receive 2 percent of venture capital," Campbell says on the Houston Innovators Podcast.
As angel investors, Campbell and Diana Murakhovskaya, co-founders and general partners of The Artemis Fund, saw tons of promising women-led businesses. Read more.