Here's how a visiting venture capitalist explores Houston's startup ecosystem for the first time

a day in the life

Pat Matthews of Active Capital visited Houston with a collaboration with the HX Venture Fund. Photo courtesy of Active Capital

When Houston Exponential established the HX Venture Fund, the goal was to bring out-of-town capital and investors into the city of Houston. The fund of funds invests in a portfolio of venture capital funds with the hope that those funds find a way back into the Houston startup ecosystem.

After a little over a year, HXVF has invested in five funds: Boston-based .406 Ventures, Austin-based Next Coast Ventures, Boston-based OpenView Venture Partners, Washington D.C.-based Updata Partners, and Austin-based LiveOak Venture Partners.

The fund of funds is also regularly hosting those five funds — as well as a mix of potential portfolio fund members — in Houston for what the HXVF calls "immersion days" where the venture capitalists can meet local startups, innovation leaders, and even fellow investors that they could eventually co-invest with.

"The goals of these days are to have venture capitalists travel to Houston, meet with our entrepreneurs (and the startup development organizations like Station, Cannon and WeWork that support them), and provide both capital and expertise in company building to the tech companies," says Sandy Guitar Wallis, managing partner at HXVF. "The venture capitalists also meet with HX Venture Fund corporate LPs, who can be customers or acquirers of their portfolio companies."

Just this month alone, HXVF is hosting four funds — two from their portfolio and two that they haven't yet invested in. San Antonio-based Active Capital, which has raised a $21 million fund, is among the visiting VCs this month. The fund's founder, Pat Matthews, an entrepreneur turned venture capitalist, has shared his busiest day — February 5 — as well as his perspective on Houston innovation with InnovationMap.

A morning too busy for breakfast

After waking up at the Hotel Derek, Matthews starts his second day in Houston by taking a Lyft to the Greater Houston Partnership for what he believes to be a breakfast meeting with Wallis and Guillermo Borda of HXVF, but the group has too much to discuss that a meal falls by the wayside.

Before this trip, Matthews hasn't visited Houston in a professional capacity. While Active Capital is based just down I10 in San Antonio, the firm's investments are split almost in half by deals done in Texas versus the rest of the world. Active Capital focuses on B2B SaaS investments — usually leading — in seed or series A rounds.

Matthews has called Texas home for around a decade. He founded an email marketing startup in Virginia, which was acquired by San Antonio-based Rackspace. He relocated to join Rackspace and worked on growing the organization for six years before creating Active Capital.

Following the meeting — still unfed, Matthews meets up with Serafina Lalany from Houston Exponential to carpool to The Cannon on the west side of town.

Loading up on carbs and fireside chats

Matthews forgoes his usual carb aversion to eat slices of Domino's pizza at The Cannon before beginning his first of three fireside chats with Houston innovators. Patrick Schneidau, CEO of Truss, leads the conversation at The Cannon. (Schneidau is a board member of InnovationMap's.) After the chat, Matthews has a meeting with a startup before heading back into town.

With one fireside chat down, Matthews heads into his second one of the day at Station Houston with Joe Alapat, founder of Liongard. Matthews observes that each of the entrepreneurs who interviewed him had great questions, and seemed to be far along with their companies. Meanwhile, any of the people he met before or after the chat seemed to be at a much earlier stage in their startup journey.

The last fireside chat was hosted by Rakesh Agrawal of Snapstream at WeWork's Jones Building location. Matthews and Agrawal attempted to set up a Facebook livestream for the conversation, but an issue with the technology wouldn't allow for the stream.

An evening of good food and great mentorship

With meetings and fireside chats done, Matthews heads straight to a dinner with Blair Garrou, founder and managing director of Mercury Fund. The two venture capitalists dine at Eunice and split several appetizers and a bottle of wine while discussing their own recent investments and interests. Matthews, who met Garrou in 2014, thinks of him as a great mentor in venture capital.

Matthews headed back to the hotel after dinner and crashes hard after the long day. He would head back to San Antonio on a Vonlane bus — he gets a lot of work done on his trips — the next day.

What's next for Active Capital and Houston?

Matthews says he left Houston with an overall positive opinion of the city, and says it's similar to other Texas cities, aside from Austin, in its startup presence and capacity. While he assumed he'd meet energy and space startups, he realized Houston had a lot more going on than that.

"It definitely seemed like there was a lot of passion and a lot of hustle," Matthews says. "And it seems like the city is really working to support and cultivate that and keep it in Houston. I was inspired."

Throughout the visit, Matthews handed out his business card and some conversations have developed from those connections, he says. Another representative from Active Capital who is focused on sourcing deals with startups will visit next, and Matthews says he also thinks that he'll return to Houston to continue conversations he's been having, including some with other investors.

"I could definitely see doing deals in Houston," Matthews tells InnovationMap.

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Texas booms as No. 3 best state to start a business right now

Innovation Starts Here

High employment growth and advantageous entrepreneurship rates have led Texas into a triumphant No. 3 spot in WalletHub's ranking of "Best and Worst States to Start a Business" for 2026.

Texas bounced back into the No. 3 spot nationally for the first time since 2023. After dropping into 8th place in 2024, the state hustled into No. 4 last year.

Ever year, WalletHub compares all 50 states based on their business environment, costs, and access to financial resources to determine the best places for starting a business. The study analyzes 25 relevant metrics to determine the rankings, such as labor costs, office space affordability, financial accessibility, the number of startups per capita, and more.

When about half of all new businesses don't last more than five years, finding the right environment for a startup is vital for long-term success, the report says.

Here's how Texas ranked across the three main categories in the study:

  • No. 1 – Business environment
  • No. 11 – Access to resources
  • No. 34 – Business costs

The state boasts the 10th highest entrepreneurship rates nationwide, and it has the 11th-highest share of fast-growing firms. WalletHub also noted that more than half (53 percent) of all Texas businesses are located in "strong clusters," which suggests they are more likely to be successful long-term.

"Clusters are interconnected businesses that specialize in the same field, and 'strong clusters' are ones that are in the top 25 percent of all regions for their particular specialization," the report said. "If businesses fit into one of these clusters, they will have an easier time getting the materials they need, and can tap into an existing customer base. To some degree, it might mean more competition, though."

Texas business owners should also keep their eye on Houston, which was recently ranked the 7th best U.S. city for starting a new business, and it was dubbed one of the top-10 tech hubs in North America. Workers in Texas are the "third-most engaged" in the country, the study added, a promising attribute for employers searching for the right place to begin their next business venture.

"Business owners in Texas benefit from favorable conditions, as the state has the third-highest growth in working-age population and the third-highest employment growth in the country, too," the report said.

The top 10 best states for starting a business in 2026 are:

  • No. 1 – Florida
  • No. 2 – Utah
  • No. 3 – Texas
  • No. 4 – Oklahoma
  • No. 5 – Idaho
  • No. 6 – Mississippi
  • No. 7 – Georgia
  • No. 8 – Indiana
  • No. 9 – Nevada
  • No. 10 – California
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This article originally appeared on CultureMap.com.

Houston lab-test startup seeks $1M for nationwide expansion

Testing Access

Health care industry veteran Jim Gebhart knew there had to be a better way for patients to access lab services, especially those with high health insurance deductibles or no insurance at all.

“This challenge became deeply personal when a close family member developed a serious illness, and we struggled to secure prompt appointments,” Gebhart tells InnovationMap. “It’s incredibly frustrating when a loved one cannot receive timely care simply because of provider shortages or the limited capacity of traditional clinics.”

Driven by the desire to knock down lab-test barriers, Gebhart founded Houston-based TheLabCafe.com in 2024. The platform provides access to low-cost medical tests without requiring patients to carry health insurance. TheLabCafe serves patients in six states: Texas, Georgia, Louisiana, Nevada, New Mexico and Oklahoma. Gebhart, the startup’s CEO, says that by the end of March, LabCafe will be offering services in 20 more states and the District of Columbia.

Gebhart has spent more than 30 years in the lab industry. His career includes stints at Austin-based Clinical Pathology Laboratories, Ohio’s Cleveland Clinic Laboratories and Secaucus, New Jersey-based Quest Diagnostics.

“Since nearly 80 percent of disease diagnoses rely on laboratory testing, I decided to leverage my background to create a more accessible, self-directed process for individuals to order blood and urine tests on their own terms — when and where they need them,” says Gebhart.

So far, Gebhart is self-funding the startup. But he plans to seek $700,000 to $1 million in outside investments in late 2026 to support the nationwide expansion and the introduction of more services.

TheLabCafe contracts with labs for an array of tests, such as cholesterol, hepatitis, metabolic, testosterone, thyroid and sexually transmitted infection (STI) tests. A cholesterol test obtained through TheLabCafe might cost $29, compared with a typical cost of perhaps $39 to $59 without insurance.

A health care professional reviews every test, both when the test is ordered and when the results are delivered, often within 24 hours. After receiving test results, a patient can schedule a virtual visit with a health care professional to go over the findings and learn potential treatment options.

Gebhart says TheLabCafe particularly benefits uninsured patients, including those in Texas. Among the states, Texas has the highest rate of uninsured residents. U.S. Census Bureau data shows 21.6 percent of adults and 13.6 percent of children in Texas lacked health insurance in 2024.

“Uninsured patients often pay the highest prices in the health care system,” Gebhart explains. “We address this by offering straightforward pricing and convenient access to testing without requiring insurance.”

“Our rates are intentionally set to remain affordable, helping individuals take a proactive approach to their health,” he adds. “Regular testing enables people to identify potential health issues early and track their progress as they make lifestyle changes. Ultimately, you can’t measure improvement without data — and laboratory results provide that data.”

Houston geothermal startup secures $97M Series B for next-gen power

fresh funding

Houston-based geothermal energy startup Sage Geosystems has closed its Series B fundraising round and plans to use the money to launch its first commercial next-generation geothermal power generation facility.

Ormat Technologies and Carbon Direct Capital co-led the $97 million round, according to a press release from Sage. Existing investors Exa, Nabors, alfa8, Arch Meredith, Abilene Partners, Cubit Capital and Ignis H2 Energy also participated, as well as new investors SiteGround Capital and The UC Berkeley Foundation’s Climate Solutions Fund.

The new geothermal power generation facility will be located at one of Ormat Technologies' existing power plants. The Nevada-based company has geothermal power projects in the U.S. and numerous other countries around the world. The facility will use Sage’s proprietary pressure geothermal technology, which extracts geothermal heat energy from hot dry rock, an abundant geothermal resource.

“Pressure geothermal is designed to be commercial, scalable and deployable almost anywhere,” Cindy Taff, CEO of Sage Geosystems, said in the news release. “This Series B allows us to prove that at commercial scale, reflecting strong conviction from partners who understand both the urgency of energy demand and the criticality of firm power.”

Sage reports that partnering with the Ormat facility will allow it to market and scale up its pressure geothermal technology at a faster rate.

“This investment builds on the strong foundation we’ve established through our commercial agreement and reinforces Ormat’s commitment to accelerating geothermal development,” Doron Blachar, CEO of Ormat Technologies, added in the release. “Sage’s technical expertise and innovative approach are well aligned with Ormat’s strategy to move faster from concept to commercialization. We’re pleased to take this natural next step in a partnership we believe strongly in.”

In 2024, Sage agreed to deliver up to 150 megawatts of new geothermal baseload power to Meta, the parent company of Facebook. At the time, the companies reported that the project's first phase would aim to be operating in 2027.

The company also raised a $17 million Series A, led by Chesapeake Energy Corp., in 2024.

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

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