Houston sees massive growth in startup venture capital investments

Money moves

The most exciting part of this Texas startup funding roundup is that Houston brought in more dollars than Dallas. Getty Images

When it comes to startup funding, Texas saw only a small jump in startup investments made, according to Crunchbase. However, when you look at funds coming into Houston companies, the Bayou City's numbers soared.

Houston raked in $251 million of the state's total $817.9 million for the second quarter. Last quarter, the city posted a mere $44.7 million of investment into local startups, which was previously a huge drop from the $121.4 million reported in Q4 2018, according to Crunchbase.

The state's VC activity only increased by less than $10 million, with both Austin and Dallas taking huge hits following their strong starts in Q1. VCs invested $411.11 million into Austin startups in Q2, which is a 19 percent drop from Q1's $493.18 million, Crunchbase's Mary Ann Azevedo reports. Dallas also saw a drop of around $100 million in investments between quarters. Dallas startups only brought in $148.5 million in Q2 compared to $245.4 million in Q1.

Chart via news.crunchbase.com

Houston's biggest deal for the quarter was AlloVir's $120 million Series B, which closed in May. The biotech company founded at Baylor's Center for Cell and Gene Therapy is currently in clinical trials for its immunotherapy technology and also announced with the round closing that it joined the ElevateBio — a Boston-based organization that combines a group of cell and gene therapy companies — portfolio.

Here are some other Houston startup deals that closed in Q2. (Note: Not all of these deals are necessarily included in Crunchbase's report.)

Houston VC deals in April:

  • Innovapptive, a software-as-a-service company with clients in industrial industries, closed on a $16.3 million Series A investment. Read more.
  • OAG Analytics, which uses artificial intelligence in the oil and gas industry, has closed its second round of strategic funding. The exact amount of the raise was not disclosed by OAG, but according to a Form D filing, the company expressed that it was raising $8.72 million in this round. Read more.

Houston VC deals in May:

  • Data Gumbo Corp., a blockchain-as-a-service company, closed on a $6 million Series A round. Read more.
  • Information technology automation and management company, Liongard, closed its Series A round at $4.5 million. Read more.
  • Tachyus, the data-driven software company has closed its Series B fundraising round at $15 million. Read more.
  • Fast-growing chemicals manufacturer, Solugen Inc., the only producer of bio-based peroxide solutions, announced that its $32 million Series B funding round has closed. Read more.

Houston VC deals in June: 

  • Following a $20 million commitment from Sanford Health, regenerative medicine and cell therapy company, InGeneron Inc., has extended its Series D round to $43 million. Read more.
  • Iownit Capital and Markets Inc. announced that it closed a $4.5 Seed round of funding. Read more.


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MD Anderson makes AI partnership to advance precision oncology

AI Oncology

Few experts will disagree that data-driven medicine is one of the most certain ways forward for our health. However, actually adopting it comes at a steep curve. But what if using the technology were democratized?

This is the question that SOPHiA GENETICS has been seeking to answer since 2011 with its universal AI platform, SOPHiA DDM. The cloud-native system analyzes and interprets complex health care data across technologies and institutions, allowing hospitals and clinicians to gain clinically actionable insights faster and at scale.

The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center has just announced its official collaboration with SOPHiA GENETICS to accelerate breakthroughs in precision oncology. Together, they are developing a novel sequencing oncology test, as well as creating several programs targeted at the research and development of additional technology.

That technology will allow the hospital to develop new ways to chart the growth and changes of tumors in real time, pick the best clinical trials and medications for patients and make genomic testing more reliable. Shashikant Kulkarni, deputy division head for Molecular Pathology, and Dr. J. Bryan, assistant professor, will lead the collaboration on MD Anderson’s end.

“Cancer research has evolved rapidly, and we have more health data available than ever before. Our collaboration with SOPHiA GENETICS reflects how our lab is evolving and integrating advanced analytics and AI to better interpret complex molecular information,” Dr. Donna Hansel, division head of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at MD Anderson, said in a press release. “This collaboration will expand our ability to translate high-dimensional data into insights that can meaningfully advance research and precision oncology.”

SOPHiA GENETICS is based in Switzerland and France, and has its U.S. offices in Boston.

“This collaboration with MD Anderson amplifies our shared ambition to push the boundaries of what is possible in cancer research,” Dr. Philippe Menu, chief product officer and chief medical officer at SOPHiA GENETICS, added in the release. “With SOPHiA DDM as a unifying analytical layer, we are enabling new discoveries, accelerating breakthroughs in precision oncology and, most importantly, enabling patients around the globe to benefit from these innovations by bringing leading technologies to all geographies quickly and at scale.”

Houston company plans lunar mission to test clean energy resource

lunar power

Houston-based natural resource and lunar development company Black Moon Energy Corporation (BMEC) announced that it is planning a robotic mission to the surface of the moon within the next five years.

The company has engaged NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) and Caltech to carry out the mission’s robotic systems, scientific instrumentation, data acquisition and mission operations. Black Moon will lead mission management, resource-assessment strategy and large-scale operations planning.

The goal of the year-long expedition will be to gather data and perform operations to determine the feasibility of a lunar Helium-3 supply chain. Helium-3 is abundant on the surface of the moon, but extremely rare on Earth. BMEC believes it could be a solution to the world's accelerating energy challenges.

Helium-3 fusion releases 4 million times more energy than the combustion of fossil fuels and four times more energy than traditional nuclear fission in a “clean” manner with no primary radioactive products or environmental issues, according to BMEC. Additionally, the company estimates that there is enough lunar Helium-3 to power humanity for thousands of years.

"By combining Black Moon's expertise in resource development with JPL and Caltech's renowned scientific and engineering capabilities, we are building the knowledge base required to power a new era of clean, abundant, and affordable energy for the entire planet," David Warden, CEO of BMEC, said in a news release.

The company says that information gathered from the planned lunar mission will support potential applications in fusion power generation, national security systems, quantum computing, radiation detection, medical imaging and cryogenic technologies.

Black Moon Energy was founded in 2022 by David Warden, Leroy Chiao, Peter Jones and Dan Warden. Chiao served as a NASA astronaut for 15 years. The other founders have held positions at Rice University, Schlumberger, BP and other major energy space organizations.

Houston co. makes breakthrough in clean carbon fiber manufacturing

Future of Fiber

Houston-based Mars Materials has made a breakthrough in turning stored carbon dioxide into everyday products.

In partnership with the Textile Innovation Engine of North Carolina and North Carolina State University, Mars Materials turned its CO2-derived product into a high-quality raw material for producing carbon fiber, according to a news release. According to the company, the product works "exactly like" the traditional chemical used to create carbon fiber that is derived from oil and coal.

Testing showed the end product met the high standards required for high-performance carbon fiber. Carbon fiber finds its way into aircraft, missile components, drones, racecars, golf clubs, snowboards, bridges, X-ray equipment, prosthetics, wind turbine blades and more.

The successful test “keeps a promise we made to our investors and the industry,” Aaron Fitzgerald, co-founder and CEO of Mars Materials, said in the release. “We proved we can make carbon fiber from the air without losing any quality.”

“Just as we did with our water-soluble polymers, getting it right on the first try allows us to move faster,” Fitzgerald adds. “We can now focus on scaling up production to accelerate bringing manufacturing of this critical material back to the U.S.”

Mars Materials, founded in 2019, converts captured carbon into resources, such as carbon fiber and wastewater treatment chemicals. Investors include Untapped Capital, Prithvi Ventures, Climate Capital Collective, Overlap Holdings, BlackTech Capital, Jonathan Azoff, Nate Salpeter and Brian Andrés Helmick.

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This article originally appeared on our sister site, EnergyCapitalHTX.com.

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