5 most popular innovation stories in Houston this week

What's trending

WeWork opening its newest office was among this week's top stories. Courtesy of WeWork

This week was the beginning of the end for 2019. InnovationMap published its last curated list of business and innovation events for the year, WeWork opened its newest location in town, and a Houston startup founder shared her rollercoaster story of failure and next chapter.

Scroll through to see what Houston innovation stories trended this week.

3 Houston innovators to know this week

Get to know this week's Houston innovators to know — and the companies they've founded. Courtesy photos

This week's innovators to know are all Houston startup founders who have identified a need in their industries and created companies to provide solutions.

From blockchain and data to real estate and smart materials, these Houston entrepreneurs are making an impact across industries as well as the Houston innovation ecosystem. Continue reading.

Photos: WeWork opens 4th Houston location in Hines downtown trophy tower and plans expansion in the Galleria

WeWork opened the doors to its fourth Houston location. Courtesy of WeWork

WeWork has officially doubled down on its downtown presence in Houston. The coworking company has officially opened the doors of its space within Hines' trophy tower.

The coworking space makes up 50,000 square feet on two floors of 609 Main St. The 48-story building, which is owned and developed by Houston-based Hines, premiered on the downtown Houston skyline in 2017. Continue reading.

10+ can't-miss Houston business and innovation events for December

From startup competitions to thought-provoking panels, here's where you need to be in December. Getty Images

Before everyone checks out of 2019, Houston has a couple more weeks filled with exciting entrepreneurial networking opportunities. Scroll through the curated list of innovation events you can't miss. Continue reading.

Exclusive: Promising Houston-born DNA dating startup shuts down; founder shares story

Brittany Barreto founded the first nationwide DNA-based dating app, and she shares her story of its unexpected, and unavoidable, downfall. Photo courtesy of Pheramor

When Brittany Baretto was 18 years old and sitting in an undergraduate genetics seminar, she raised her hand. She asked, to her professor's point, if particular DNA trait differences between two people can result in attraction, could she, based on that logic, make a DNA-based dating tool. With that question, she set in motion a series of events.

These events included teaming up with Bin Huang to start a dating app, called Pheramor, that factored in user DNA; raising millions for the company; hiring a team from across the country; and signing up users in all 50 states. Though, Pheramor's hockey stick growth came to a sudden stop this year when Apple pulled the app from its store, and there was nothing the founders or their investors could do about it. Continue reading.

TMC Innovation Institute leader breaks down how much the program has grown in Houston

From robots and accelerator programs to her favorite health tech startups, Emily Reiser of the TMC Innovation Institute joins the Houston Innovators Podcast. Photo courtesy of Emily Reiser

The Texas Medical Center's Innovation Institute has just celebrated five years of advancing new technologies within health care, and over the past year, the institute has evolved to set up the TMC for its next years of innovation.

"In 2019, we had a lot of big changes around our team and our leadership," says Emily Reiser, senior manager of innovation community engagement at TMC. "That enabled us to take a bigger breath and a bigger pause to say, 'How are we really doing? And how could we be doing better?'" Continue reading and listen to the episode.

WeWork opened the doors to its fourth Houston location. Courtesy of WeWork

Photos: WeWork opens 4th Houston location in Hines downtown trophy tower and plans expansion in the Galleria

Coworking it out

WeWork has officially doubled down on its downtown presence in Houston. The coworking company has officially opened the doors of its space within Hines' trophy tower.

"The new WeWork space at 609 Main Street is a great complement to our state-of-the-art office building in downtown Houston," says Philip Croker, senior managing director at Hines, in a news release. "It's been a pleasure to work with this team and we are eager to see their space filled with Houston's cutting-edge businesses. We know WeWork in Houston is strong and look forward to our partnership growing in the years to come."

Meanwhile in the Galleria area, WeWork is opening two additional floors of its space in Galleria Tower I this month. More details on the expansion are still to come.

The new 609 Main location, which was originally announced this summer, joins the Galleria location and a Woodlands location in Hughes Landing, which also just announced its new location recently, as well as another downtown location in the Jones Building — just across the street at 708 Main St.

The new location is modern and high-end, per the release, which juxtaposes its historic sister location in downtown. The 609 Main location has a more executive feel than the homey environment of the Jones Building. For that, the new location charges a bit of a premium. Private offices at 609 Main begin at $780 a month, compared to the rates of $550 at the Jones Building and $580 at Galleria Tower I. Unassigned desk memberships are around $300 monthly for the two older locations, compared to closer to $400 for 609 Main.

"WeWork is eager to continue its expansion in the Houston area with the opening of our fourth location in Houston and second downtown," says Nathan Lenahan, general manager for Texas at WeWork, in the release. "The space at 609 Main Street is a perfect location for those businesses and entrepreneurs downtown looking to expand and have a flexible, creative office environment that promotes community."

Last month, the New York Times announced job cuts companywide for WeWork, however there has not been any regional reports for the coworking company or any information on how the cuts will affect Houston locations.

Executive feel

Courtesy of WeWork

Compared to WeWork's other Houston locations, the 609 Main space has more of an executive feel — and monthly membership reflects that. Rates are a full $200 more a month for a private office compared to WeWork's other downtown location.

WeWork will have a fourth Houston location. Photo courtesy of WeWork

WeWork doubles down on downtown with its 4th Houston coworking space announced

Coworkers unite

WeWork has decided to open yet another coworking location in Houston — this time, the new office is just down the street from an existing location.

The New York City-based coworking company has opened three locations across Houston — one in downtown's The Jones Building, one in the Galleria Office Tower I, and one in Hughes Landing in The Woodlands, which was recently announced in May.

The new location will occupy 56,000 square feet of the 25th and 26th floors of 609 Main, Houston-based Hines' 48-story trophy tower that joined the Houston skyline in early 2017. The building now has tenants to the tune of United Airlines, Kirkland & Ellis LLP, Orrick, and Hogan Lovells, to name a few.

"The modern office is evolving and providing a coworking component is essential to a building's long-term viability," says Philip Croker, Hines senior managing director, in a release. "Adding a tenant of WeWork's caliber further reinforces the strength of 609 Main and will deliver an outstanding amenity for the building and its future occupants."

In addition to the usual WeWork perks — like 24/7 building access, coffee, community events, and business resources — members will also have access to a 7,000-square-foot high-performance fitness center in the building and the lobby coffee shop.

Michael Anderson and Damon Thames with Colvill Office Properties represented Hines in the transaction and Mark O'Donnell with Savills Commercial Real Estate negotiated on behalf of WeWork.

"Houston is a thriving business hub and innovative city," says Nathan Lenahan, general manager of WeWork, in a release. "We are excited to expand our footprint with a second location downtown and continue to strengthen the WeWork network with the opening of 609 Main Street."

In May, WeWork announced that it would be opening 1,000 desks in its new Woodlands location, but the company also disclosed that 775 desks will be added to the Galleria location in 2019 too. In the same release, an additional 1,000 desks were noted to be in the works, pending new leases. This figure could have been referring to the then-unannounced downtown location.

"In 2018, WeWork grew its footprint in a very big way in Houston. Now, in 2019, we're growing even more, but in a way that's as much about desks as it is impact," says Roniel Bencosme, WeWork Houston's community director, in the news release. "In this next year, WeWork will build a constellation of opportunity through new spaces spread across Houston, and opening in the Woodlands is key to that effort."

Regionally, WeWork has a presence in five cities in Texas — Dallas, Fort Worth, Houston, Austin, and Plano — but will launch in its sixth Texas city, San Antonio, in early 2020.

Last month, WeWork announced that Houston's Jones Building location would be one of three WeWork locations selected for a 3D printing pilot program. Additionally, earlier this year the company announced its early-stage incubator program, WeWork Labs, also in the Jones Building location.

Ad Placement 300x100

Ad Placement 300x600

CultureMap Emails are Awesome

Property Showcase

Fast-growing Houston real estate startup surges to No. 7 on Inc. 5000

growth report

Houston-based Epique Realty has ridden the AI wave to rank among the Inc. 5000’s 10 fastest-growing private companies.

With three-year revenue growth of 23,210 percent, the AI-powered real estate brokerage appears at No. 7 on this year’s Inc. 5000 list. The 2026 list ranks private companies based on percentage revenue growth from 2022 to 2025.

Epique, founded in 2021, also ranks as the No. 1 fastest-growing company in Houston, No. 1 fastest-growing real estate company in the U.S., and No. 2 fastest-growing company in Texas.

Epique’s annual revenue surpasses $91 million

Between 2022 and 2025, the company’s annual revenue skyrocketed from $391,654 to more than $91.2 million. In 2025, the brokerage closed more than 23,000 deals and surpassed $7 billion in total sales, elevating Epique to the country’s 14th-largest real estate brokerage as measured by volume.

Epique’s network has more than 4,000 agents.

“To debut in the top 10 of the Inc. 5000 is absolute proof that when you relentlessly put agents first, exponential growth takes care of itself,” co-founder and CEO Joshua Miller said in a news release.

“We didn’t achieve this by following the industry playbook; we achieved this by burning it,” Miller added. “By fully funding our agents’ success through free health care, proprietary AI, and world-class leads, we’ve built a company where agents can finally thrive.”

The company’s other co-founders are Chris Miller, chief operating officer and vice president of expansion, and Janice Delci, chief financial officer.

Epique expands business to Canada, Mexico, Australia

The Millers and Delci have guided the company’s rapid expansion.

“Scaling our corporate support team to match [our] hyper-growth while seamlessly expanding across all 50 states and internationally to Canada, Australia, and Mexico takes an incomparable operational infrastructure,” Miller said.

“We have built an enterprise-grade technology ecosystem that allows us to absorb overhead and empower our agents at lightning speed,” he added. “This ranking validates that our disruptive model is working, and it is completely redefining the global industry standard.”

Epique launched its platform in 2023, touting itself as the industry’s first AI-powered brokerage. The startup’s platform provides AI tools for real estate agents to improve their marketing, streamline content creation, and boost engagement with clients and prospects.

Among Epique’s AI tools are:

ChatGPT for generation of property descriptions
AI-assisted creation of blog posts and agents’ bios
Production of Instagram quotes for social media marketing

“When we started Epique, we wanted to build a company that genuinely cared for its agents’ financial and physical well-being,” Delci says. “To see that vision translate into this level of historic record-breaking growth is a beautiful testament to the true power of radical generosity.”

Epique and fellow honorees will be recognized Oct. 14-16 at the 2026 Inc. 5000 Conference & Gala in Dallas.

Six other Houston-area companies land in top 250

Here are the six other Houston-area companies that claimed spots in the top 250 on the Inc. 5000 list. Each company name is followed by its ranking, headquarters city, and three-year growth rate.

No. 27 Empact Technologies, 8,275 percent
No. 60 Action1, 4,512 percent
No 75 Signs By G, 3,684 percent
No. 79 The ’Pause Life, 3,469 percent (Galveston)
No. 110 Turtlebox Audio, 2,576 percent
No. 178 Dahnani Private Equity Group, 1,904 percent (Stafford)

How did companies in Texas’ other major metros fare?

Here’s a breakdown of companies in the Austin, Dallas-Fort Worth, and San Antonio areas that made the top 250 on the Inc. 5000. Again, each company name is followed by its ranking, headquarters city, and three-year growth rate.

Austin (10 companies)

No. 9 Investment Watches, 15,741 percent
No. 72 Razor Metrics, 3,856 percent
No. 91 Autonomize AI, 2,921 percent
No. 102 Choose Your Horizon, 2,719 percent
No. 132 Wander Staffing, 2,296 percent
No. 144 Everyday Dose, 2,179 percent
No. 148 NetRise, 2,118 percent
No. 163 Nutrabound Labs, 1,999 percent (Bastrop)
No. 179 Steadily, 1,890 percent
No. 208 Tiny Health, 1,624 percent

Dallas-Fort Worth (11 companies)

No. 3 Yantran, 258,740 percent (Allen)
No. 12 Paek Management Group, 12,520 percent (Irving)
No. 82 Elite Robotics and Automation, 3,334 percent (Fort Worth)
No. 133 Outamation, 2,291 percent (Southlake)
No. 147 Red Creek Solutions, 2,119 percent (Frisco)
No. 155 JobTread Software, 2,071 percent (Dallas)
No. 164 DAX Eyewear, 1,977 percent (Nevada)
No. 186 Optimized Waste Removal, 1,830 percent (Fort Worth)
No. 204 Freight Flex, 1,642 percent (Denton)
No. 212 Maverick Power, 1,591 percent (McKinney)
No. 229 Innovative Life Sciences, 1,494 percent (McKinney)

San Antonio (one company)

No. 118 Hire With Near, 2,421 percent

Amazon to expand Prime Air drone delivery to almost 500 U.S. cities

In the air

https://sanantonio.culturemap.com/news/city-life/prime-air-expands-service-texas/By the end of the year, more Texans may be able to get ultrafast deliveries through Amazon’s Prime Air drone delivery service. On Wednesday, August 19, the company announced plans to majorly expand drone delivery to nearly 500 cities in the U.S., a sixfold increase from its current footprint.

Although Amazon did not reveal the cities it is targeting for the expansion, it almost certainly will include Texas. The state, which ranks among the biggest states for ecommerce activity, is currently home to four of the nation’s 11 Prime Air sites, including the Houston suburb of Richmond, as well as San Antonio, Waco, and Richardson (near Dallas).

For drone deliveries, the company tends to target areas unencumbered by skyscrapers and major airports. Each facility covers a delivery area of approximately 175 square miles.

Prime Air deliveries must be five pounds or less and fit into a large shoebox. Still, Amazon says more than 60 percent of its most ordered items are eligible. The list includes groceries, cosmetics, medications, clothing, and small electronics like Apple AirPods and Ring doorbells. More fragile items — like eggs — are not available through the service.

Orders arrive as quickly as 30 minutes, with most packages dropped around 60 minutes after checkout. Prime members will enjoy free delivery on orders $50 or more and a $2.99 fee for orders under $50. Non-members pay $4.99.

Amazon drone delivery Photo courtesy of Amazon

According to Amazon, customers should have little worries about orders being damaged or drones being entangled in trees. Shoppers see and confirm their delivery point when placing their first drone delivery order and can select a new area at any time.

Amazon also sends a notification to customers if there is no safe delivery space and does not fly at night or under severe weather conditions. The retail giant says noise is minimal with sound levels similar to idling delivery trucks.

Georgia, Ohio, Illinois, Idaho, and New York are the first states on the expansion plan. All future sites will be subject to regulatory hurdles like zoning changes, but the company is confident it will be serving tens of millions of new customers by year-end.

---

This article originally appeared on CultureMap.com.

Telsa targets Houston area for new $10 billion manufacturing plant

Project Sun City

Electric vehicle and clean energy company Tesla is considering building a new $10.1 billion solar cell manufacturing facility in Fort Bend County, according to documents filed with the Texas Comptroller’s Office.

If approved, the plant, called Project Sun City, would be located on a 3,050-acre site off FM 762 and FM 1994 in Richmond, Texas. Tesla aims to finish construction in 2028, with the plant being operational by early 2029.

The plant will manufacture photovoltaic (PV) solar cells and modules that can convert sunlight into electricity. PV Magazine reports that the facility is "the largest single manufacturing investment Tesla has proposed on paper."

Advisory and consulting firm Kroll submitted the documents to the Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts and noted if an agreement regarding tax incentives isn't reached, the project will exit Texas.

Tesla has requested credits under the Jobs, Energy, Technology, and Innovation (JETI) Act. The incentive program aims to attract large, capital-intensive economic development projects by lowering the property taxes an entity must pay over 10 years if it meets requirements related to job creation and investment. For example, pharmaceutical giant Bristol Myers Squibb Co. recently announced that its forthcoming $2.3 billion Houston-area manufacturing site is a qualified project under the JETI program.

Kroll predicts that the facility would create 9,712 new full-time jobs, over 1,100 construction jobs and billions of dollars in future property tax revenue, the documents show. Additionally, it says the project will spur $1.1 billion in local business expenditures and that Texas would increase its GDP by approximately $107 billion as a result of the project activities.

Tesla opened its $200 million Megafactory in Brookshire, Texas, last year. The company is continuing its goal to deploy 100 gigawatts of solar manufacturing in the U.S before the end of 2028. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, 100 gigawatts is equal to about 8 percent of the country's power grid capacity.

---

This article originally appeared on EnergyCapitalHTX.com.

View All Listings

INNOVATIONMAP EMAILS ARE AWESOME