3 Houston innovators to know this week

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This week's Houston innovators to know roundup includes Aimee Woodall of The Black Sheep Agency, Alok Pant of Unvired, and Abbey Donnell of Work & Mother. Photos courtesy

Houston's rising COVID-19 case numbers and Texas' new regulations for bars and restaurants are a sure sign that the city isn't out of the woods from the pandemic — and that includes Houston's startups and entrepreneurs.

This week's three Houston innovators to know include three people who are advocating for continuing through the pandemic — the right way, from using tech to better communicate with employees at home to factoring in the new moms when you roll out your back-to-work plans.

Aimee Woodall, CEO and founder of the Black Sheep Agency

Aimee Woodall has been focused on innovation and creativity during COVID-19 for her own company, The Black Sheep Agency, but also for its clients. Photo courtesy of The Black Sheep Agency

Aimee Woodall founded The Black Sheep Agency in order to help impact-based businesses tell their stories. Now, amid COVID-19, that mission is more important than ever.

"We write, we design, we build campaigns, we work in the digital space — whatever it takes to tell the story of the organization and to rally other people to not only pay attention to what the organization is doing but to also find their own way to participate in moving that mission forward," Woodall shares on this week's episode of the Houston Innovators Podcast.

Thinking back to when COVID-19 really started affecting business and her campaigns, Woodall remembers how she and her team had to reevaluate existing content, pivot planned projects, and, in some cases, cancel events or programming. Read more.

Alok Pant, founder and CEO of Unvired

A Houston software startup has created a communication tool and is allowing free access amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Photo courtesy of Unvired

A Houston startup recently released an app to help employees voice their concerns and keep businesses with their finger on the pulse of employee morale. The survey is customizable for each business and contains questions with the most important factors such as employee health and well being, communication, confidence, and leadership.

"Digital Forms fits in with a whole new paradigm in the software world," says Alok Pant, CEO of Unvired. "It allows a business user to make their own specialized applications fast and easy with no coding necessary."

The low-code platform has a drag-and-drop form building feature to instantly deploy surveys, can store data in the Unvired Cloud, and instantly generate reports for insights in the administration portal. Read more.

Abbey Donnell, founder of Work & Mother

Abbey Donnell's startup, Work & Mother, provides a new way for new moms to pump breast milk during the workday. Courtesy of Work & Mother

As offices started to reopen and release new safety measures that will be put in place in the office, Abbey Donnell noticed a certain group or people who were going to be affected by these measures: New moms. Mother's rooms are usually multi purposeful, lack access to sinks, and seen as expendable, Donnell writes in a guest column for InnovationMap,

"If mother's needs are not part of this vital return to work safety conversation, women may be left behind," she writes. "So let's start the conversation." Read more.

A Houston software startup has created a communication tool and is allowing free access amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Getty Images

Houston tech startup offers free survey app to help companies manage COVID-19 response

software solutions

Keeping employees and employers connected is crucial during a crisis. A Houston-based software startup recognizes the importance of communication during the COVID-19 pandemic, providing its digital form and surveys app for free for six months.

Unvired Inc. recently unveiled its Digital Forms app to help employees voice their concerns and keep businesses with their finger on the pulse of employee morale. The survey is customizable for each business and contains questions with the most important factors such as employee health and well being, communication, confidence, and leadership.

"Digital Forms fits in with a whole new paradigm in the software world," says CEO Alok Pant. "It allows a business user to make their own specialized applications fast and easy with no coding necessary."

The startup already has customers using it for their COVID-19 response, with users choosing to use it as a sort of information hub with frequently asked questions along with questions regarding employee and health wellbeing. While other companies use for surveying the number of masks and hand sanitizer supplies available.

The forms app, already in the works months before the virus changed the scope of daily life, will be officially launched in July.

"Digital Forms inadvertently became the perfect tool to easily build forms and create workflows during the time of the coronavirus pandemic," says Pant. "We wanted to help our community in any small way we can, so we saw offering this app for free as a great opportunity to help our business community."

Unvired, which is based out of Station Houston, has nationwide and international clients in a variety of different industries. According to Pant, Unvired's platform for surveys and customizable forms was first born out of their own customer's need for an app with form digitization capabilities.

"Many of our customers, especially in the oil field use many paper forms as part of their process," says Plant. "Our app is a very form-centric application that can serve our customers with automated digitization of forms, making it easier for employees to reduce manual data entry, enable real-time decision making, and lower operational costs."

This launch is only part of Unvired's new line of products. The startup is also releasing Chyme Bots, a digital communications solution that can be tailored to a specific business to answer frequently asked questions quickly and remotely.

"Many businesses will have to start to invest in digital in the near future," says Pant. "If they want to get out of the slump the pandemic has landed many businesses, digitization along with digital applications will be key to growth and efficiency."

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4 Houston health tech startups advancing medical innovation

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Houston has been driving medical innovation for decades. And thanks to leading hospitals, cutting-edge research and breakthrough technologies, the region’s healthcare ecosystem continues to improve how patients are diagnosed, treated and cared for.

The Health Tech Business category in our 2025 Houston Innovation Awards will honor an innovative startup within the health and medical technology sectors.

Four forward-thinking businesses have been named finalists for the 2026 award. This year's finalists, selected by our esteemed panel of judges, range from a startup developing miniaturized medical technologies for space to a company using AI to help develop cancer treatment plans.

Read more about these businesses, their innovative founders, and how they're shaping the future of health care below.. The 2026 winners will be announced on InnovationMap.com in mid-November.

Bairitone Health

Bairitone Health is bringing anatomy imaging for sleep apnea to the home environment. The company's platform maps users' anatomy during natural sleep using a facial patch to determine the root cause of airway obstruction. It then offers effective therapies for each patient.

The company was founded in 2022 in the Texas Medical Center's Biodesign program by CEO Meagan Pitcher, CTO Onur Kilic and chief medical officer Britt Cross. It was a member of Activate Houston's inaugural cohort and has participated in numerous accelerators and incubators. The company raised an oversubscribed seed round for $2.4 million earlier this year and received Breakthrough Device Designation from the Food and Drug Administration in April.

InformAI Inc.

InformAI Inc. develops fit-to-purpose AI solutions for the clinical setting. Its RadOncAI product recently received FDA 510(k) clearance. The product uses AI to create a first-pass radiation therapy dose plan for complex head and neck cancers in an effort to eliminate bottlenecks in radiation planning and ultimately cancer treatment. The company has also developed AI products for sinus disease detection and 3D organ reconstruction.

CEO Jim Havelka founded the company in 2017. It is participating in the Mayo Clinic Accelerate Platform. It has raised about $4 million in seed funding and has received numerous non-dilutive grants from the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health and the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas. The company shared in its application that it plans to launch a Series A fundraising round and submit an FDA 510K application for its organ reconstruction product, Voluquant, by the end of 2026.

Prana Surgical

Prana Surgical is developing a minimally invasive surgical platform for small, hard-to-reach lung nodules that may be cancerous. The company's Prana System cleared U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval earlier this year.

Prana Surgical was originally founded as Prana Thoracic in 2022. It has participated in numerous accelerators, including the Texas Medical Center Innovation Accelerator in 2023 and the IGNITE Health accelerator in 2022. It raised $6 million in Series A funding rounds in 2023 and 2024 , with a Series B currently ongoing. The company said in its application that it is currently moving into the next stage of clinical validation and revenue generation in the U.S., in addition to preparing its manufacturing and commercial infrastructure for broader use.

Skybound MedTech

Skybound MedTech develops technologies that aim to address the health risks of long-duration spaceflight. Its compact, miniaturized medical technologies can deliver complex therapies without a physician.

CEO Matthew Kuhn, who previously founded Taurus Vascular, founded Skybound last year. The company emerged from stealth in January after raising a $1.25 million Series A round. It plans to advance its lead dual-use platform into critical preclinical validation in November, the company shared in its application. It is currently raising a $25 million Series A round and is pursuing federal research partnerships with DARPA and ARPA-H.

Generation Park lands new facility to scale xeno-organ production

Organ innovation

Maryland-based United Therapeutics Corp. has opened a new 77,448-square-foot facility to manufacture xeno-organs in Northeast Houston’s growing biotech hub, Generation Park.

The new Houston location is United Therapeutics’ third Designated Pathogen-Free (DPF) site, named for transplant pioneers Dr. Bartley P. Griffith and Dr. Robert A. Montgomery. The company says the new facility will enable it to scale commercial production of its xeno-organs once they receive regulatory approval.

An existing DPF facility in Virginia is supporting clinical trials for the xeno-organs, and a third site in Minnesota will also focus on commercialization with the Houston site, according to the company.

Xeno-organs are organs taken from a non-human animal source and transplanted, implanted or infused into a human recipient.

Currently, United Therapeutics is advancing clinical trials to support a Biologics License Application with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for its investigational-stage xenotransplantation, UKidney, UThymoKidney and UHeart products. The products all involve working with the genes from humans and pigs.

In 2025, Chron.com reported the company was working to construct an estimated $96 million facility to breed genetically engineered animals. Head of investor relations at United Therapeutics Dewey Steadman told the Houston Business Journal in 2025 that the pigs’ DNA will be edited. In November 2024, a 53-year-old woman in Alabama received a transplanted kidney from UKidney that had 10 gene edits. She had the transplant removed in April 2025, after her body rejected it.

The Dr. Bartley P. Griffith and Dr. Robert A. Montgomery Xenograft Production Facility requires a “strictly controlled, biosecure barrier environment, including air filtration, filtered water, filtered feed supplies, and state-of-the-art decontamination entryways,” according to the company. Being pathogen-free means it includes calibrated air and water conduits to support the transplantability of xenograft products and to prevent contamination. For energy considerations, the building also features solar arrays.

“With our third xenograft production facility now open and clinical trials underway, United Therapeutics is moving closer to its goal of providing transplantable organs to the people who need them,” Martine Rothblatt, chairperson and CEO of United Therapeutics, said in a news release. “It is fitting that this facility is named for Dr. Griffith and Dr. Montgomery, whose first-in-human surgeries turned xenotransplantation from a theoretical possibility into a clinical reality.”

The facility, which wrapped construction in August, is located at 11848 Common Dock Dr. in Generation Park, which will house manufacturing sites for pharmaceutical heavyweights Bristol Myers Squibb and Eli Lilly. Last fall, Eli Lilly tapped Generation Park for its $6.5 billion manufacturing plant, and Bristol Myers Squibb made a $2.3 billion investment in August to bring its state-of-the-art site to the master-planned commercial district.

Elon Musk's SpaceX reports profit as AI and satellite businesses booms

Booming Business

SpaceX reported a bigger quarterly profit than expected on Tuesday, October 20, as its satellite communications and artificial intelligence businesses boomed.

The company, run by Elon Musk, posted a profit for the three months through September 2026 of $4.4 billion, or 35 cents per share, reversing a year-ago loss and easily topping Wall Street's expectations. Revenue soared to $14.6 billion, up 161%.

On a conference call with analysts, Musk suggested a merger with his electric car company Tesla might be in the works, something that has been rumored for months. He said both companies formed “special committees” of independent directors to discuss the issue, though he played down the chances of an imminent deal.

“Some people out there assume that a SpaceX and Tesla merger is a certainty,” he said. “I think that would be overstating it.”

The AI business became SpaceX's largest by revenue in the third quarter, although the Starlink satellite service remains the biggest profit generator.

“They beat across all metrics and the Starlink business looks to be accelerating,” said Dan Ives, an analyst at Yorkville Ives. “This is just what (Wall) Street wanted.”

The stock rose 7.5% in after-hours trading.

Musk also told analysts that for next month's launch of its Starship rocket, SpaceX will attempt to grab both the booster and ship with mechanical arms upon return to base, a key step toward demonstrating it can reuse the massive spacecraft.

“The only way that we can extend consciousness beyond Earth on a sustained basis is with a fully reusable orbital launch vehicle,” Musk said, calling the attempt, if successful, “a massive technology milestone.”

SpaceX hopes to get Starship on a regular launch pattern in preparation for NASA's upcoming lunar missions.

The company already has huge contracts with the federal government, and House Democrats have called for investigations into those contracts and Musk’s work with the Department of Government Efficiency. Musk has spent $276 million since July in support of Republican candidates.

In a filing for its initial public offering in June, SpaceX warned that a change in control of Congress could have a “material and adverse impact on our growth and competitive position.”

Musk recently drew criticism from politicians in Washington after speeds for a military version of SpaceX's satellite communications service were slowed for Ukraine following President Donald Trump's deal to get more diesel oil from Russia amid a push to end the war. The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday that it was Musk who ordered the slowdown, impeding Ukraine’s use of drones along the front. SpaceX did not immediately respond to an Associated Press request for comment on the Journal story.

Both Trump and Musk have denied responsibility for the slowdown.

As midterm elections near, Musk on Monday promised to give one share of SpaceX to “every kid in America” next year, though he provided no details on how the distribution would be carried out. With communities nationwide protesting the construction of large data centers and concerns about AI safety, AI companies are trying to build goodwill. Anthropic pledged to commit 5% of its shares to a new “public benefit” fund.

SpaceX shares have been under pressure over concerns that the company was spending too much on major projects to compete with rivals such as Anthropic. The company said capital expenditures totaled $19.6 billion last quarter, nearly triple the figure from a year earlier, and it forecast spending would grow to $35 billion to $40 billion in the current quarter.

Shares of SpaceX closed Tuesday at $147.79, down from a peak near $201 after its IPO, which made Musk the world’s first trillionaire at the time. But the share prices for SpaceX and Tesla have since dropped, reducing his net worth to $925 billion, according to Forbes magazine.

Tesla reports third-quarter financial results Wednesday. Last week, Tesla unveiled a new Roadster sports car that in some versions may include thrusters allowing it to briefly fly using SpaceX technology — though experts say anything usable for drivers is a long shot.

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