Florida startup Fit:Match chose Houston for its first location of its AI-enabled retail store. Photo via shopfitmatch.com

In November, on the first floor of Friendswood's Baybrook Mall, wedged between the Abercrombie & Fitch and the Apple Store, a small studio popped up. At the window, a bubblegum assortment of balloons replaced the usual spruced-up manakin, and the shop is sparse for racks of clothing.

That's because the Fit:Match studio isn't really trying to sell clothes — it's trying to help you buy them online. By fusing artificial intelligence with retail shopping, Fit:Match makes ordering clothes online more trustworthy. The writing on the walls promised to revolutionize the way that people could: "Shop what fits. Not what doesn't," reads a neon sign. The tech might not only reduce long waits for the dressing room — it could abolish it altogether.

"You never have to try on clothes again," says Haniff Brown, founder of the Florida-native startup.

The store does have a fitting room, but Brown says it's not really for trying on clothes — it's for preparing to "get fitched," the process through which the imaging tech measures a customer's body.

It's fitting that the pop-up sits next to the iPhone giant. Fit:Match uses the same 3D imaging tech as Apple's FaceID, Brown says, which blasts infrared light at thousands of dots at a user's face. Where the light bounces off, the AI technology images the person's face. The sensors at the Fit:Match studio in Baybrook Mall expand this to the rest of the body. In 10 seconds, the AI sensor lets people sketches a customer's shape through 150 measurements.

Those measurements become indicators of how well a piece of clothing will fit the wearer. In the initial phase of the project, Brown's team fitched thousands of women — wanting to keep things neat, the company hasn't ventured into men's fashion yet — and compared the scores of the AI's algorithm with how the women scored their own clothes.

Now, once a customer has been fitched at the Baybrook studio, she can log online through an app or the company site and sift through thousands of clothes that will likely fit her. Each clothing item — mostly smaller brands that range from eclectic pieces and dresses to athleisure right now, Brown says, although he's already working to partner with better-known labels — is rated with a percentage of how well it's likely to fit the individual customer, based on her measurements and on how snug or loose she likes her wear. From the array of brands, she'll get specific matches — clothes that have a 90 percent chance or higher of fitting — that might look completely different from a friend's. Over time, the app will also update her on the latest matches.

"You're going to have this personalized wallet," Brown says, adding that this will also decrease a store's rate of return. "You will see a completely truncated assortment of clothes that are meant to fit you."

The Baybrook Mall hosts Fit:Match's first location. Brown says he chose the Houston area for its size and demographics, calling it a "hotbed to test new ideas, to get traction, to get customer feedback," and is even considering expanding to the Woodlands Mall and other places around Texas, too. It's also not far from the Austin-based Capital Factory, which brought Fit:Match under its wing late last year to help the startup raise $5 million.

In the meantime, the five-member management team at Fit:Match is focused on getting more Houstonians fitched. In the first month of operations, the studio measured more than 1,200 mallgoers, and Brown says the company could fitch a quarter million in the next two or three years.

"We think that the opportunity here is immense," Brown says.

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UH receives $1M grant to advance research on rare pediatric disorder

peds research

The University of Houston has received a two-year, $1.1 million gift from the Cynthia and George Mitchell Foundation to advance research on a rare genetic disorder that can lead to both deafness and blindness in children, known as Usher Syndrome.

The current grant will support the research of UH biomedical engineering professors Muna Naash and Muayyad Al-Ubaidi, who work in the Laboratory for Retinal Molecular and Cellular Biology and Gene Therapy in the Cullen College of Engineering. The professors have published their findings in the journal Nature Communications.

Naash and Al-Ubaidi’s research focuses on mutations in the USH2A gene, which is crucial to the development and maintenance of the inner ear and retina. The work was inspired by a chance meeting that changed Naash’s life.

“Our work began more than two decades ago when I met a young boy who had lost his both his vision and hearing, and it made me realize just how precious those two senses are, and it truly touched my heart,” Naash said in a news release from UH. “Thanks to the generosity of the Cynthia and George Mitchell Foundation, we can now take the next critical steps in our research and bring hope to families affected by this challenging condition.”

The grant from the foundation comes in addition to a previous $1.6 million award from the National Eye Institute in 2023, which helped create a research platform for innovative gene therapy approaches for the condition.

Usher Syndrome affects 25,000 people in the U.S. and is the most common genetic condition worldwide that impacts both hearing and vision in children. Currently, there is no cure for any of the main three types of the condition. UH believes support from the Cynthia and George Mitchell Foundation will help elevate research, advance real-world solutions in health and improve lives.

“What makes UH such a powerful hub for research is not just its own resources, but also its location and strategic partnerships, including those with the Texas Medical Center,” Al-Ubaidi said in a news release. “We have access to an extraordinary network, and that kind of collaborative environment is essential when tackling complex diseases like Usher syndrome, where no single lab can do it alone.”

Members-only coworking club Switchyards to open first Houston location

Where to Work

An innovative take on the coworking space is coming to Houston. Switchyards will open its first location in the Bayou City on Monday, September 29.

Located in the former Buffalo Exchange at 2901 S Shepherd Drive, Switchyards is well located on the border of Montrose, River Oaks, and Upper Kirby. Founded in Atlanta, the Houston location will join 30 outposts in cities such as Austin, Dallas, Denver, Kansas City, and Nashville.

Unlike WeWork, which caters to companies looking for office space for groups of employees, Switchyards pitches itself as a club for individuals who want to get a little work done away from their home offices.

“Working from home all the time is pretty lonesome,” Switchyards creative director Brandon Hinman says. “It feels good to have places to get out and mix it up. To change paces and change scenery.”

Switchyards facilitates that change of scenery with an environment that blends touches of hotel lobbies, college libraries, and coffee shops. As seen in the photos of the company’s other location, the furniture is a mix of desks, comfy chairs, and couches for individuals or small groups. It’s a far cry from the cube farms of the Office Space era.

“They tend to be historic, textured, layered,” Hinman says about the company’s locations. “A lot of really good furniture. Really thoughtful for getting a couple hours of work done.”

Each location features fast wi-fi, plenty of electrical outlets, and good quality coffee and tea. All 250 members have 24/7 access to the space. And by choosing the real estate they lease carefully, Switchyards keeps its membership price to $100 per month.

“Packaging it together like that and opening in these neighborhoods where people actually live has been pretty magical,” Hinman says. "The big opportunity, I think, is that 90 percent of our members have never had a shared space before. It is unlocking a new thing for people.”

Those who are interested in learning more can sign up at switchyards.com/houston-tx to get early access to memberships and an invite to a sneak peek party.

Memberships go on sale Thursday, September 25 at 10 am. Switchyards notes that the last 14 clubs have sold out on day one.

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This story originally appeared on CultureMap.com.

Houston's surge in new startups cools since pandemic peak, study shows

by the numbers

Startup activity in the Houston metro area has dipped since its pandemic peak, according to a new study.

Dating back to 2005, the volume of applications to form new businesses in the Houston area hit its highest level in 2021 (151,804). Since then, though, the application volume has fallen, according to the study, conducted by business debt collection agency The Kaplan Group. Here's the breakdown from the last few years:

  • Applications dropped to 130,011 in 2022
  • Climbed to 145,926 in 2023
  • Dropped again to 138,595 in 2024

Looking at the Houston area’s figures another way, the 2024 total surpassed the 2015-19 average by roughly 60 percent to 90 percent, the study shows.

Dallas-Fort Worth has seen similar startup declines (162,312 in 2021 vs. 153,378 in 2024), but the San Antonio metro area recorded higher application volume in 2023 and 2024 (37,412 and 35,798, respectively) than it did in 2021 (34,208).

The story is different in the Austin metro area. Application volume in 2023 and 2024 (53,200 and 59,190, respectively) exceeded the 2021 total (47,106).

The picture for startup activity in Texas’ four major metros deviates from the nationwide picture.

“America’s real viral trend is entrepreneurship,” says The Kaplan Group. “New business formations are reaching an all-time high across the country.”

In the U.S., per-month business formations soared 435 percent from 2004 (89,561) to 2025 (478,805), the study says.

Amid the growth of startup activity, business bankruptcies in the U.S. have plummeted almost 74 percent since 2004, according to The Kaplan Group.

“The country’s business scene has grown both more resilient and more ambitious in the past two decades,” the collection agency says.