Weather analytics platform with Houston HQ taps Norwegian biz to optimize tech

weatherproof tech

StormGeo, a Houston-based weather intelligence provider, has partnered with Norwegian company 7Analytics to create technology positioned to revolutionize planning for floods. Photo courtesy of Kinder Institute

There’s no way around it: Houston floods. And with the deluge comes hurdles for businesses. The only real power we have in the face of such adversity is preparation.

StormGeo, a weather intelligence provider with its United States headquarters in Houston, has partnered with Norwegian company 7Analytics to create technology positioned to revolutionize planning for floods.

StormGeo debuted in Norway in 1997. In 2012, it acquired Houston company Impact Weather, says Bob Weinzapfel, a meteorologist and senior project manager of weather insights for StormGeo. Houston is one of 24 offices spread over 15 countries with more than 600 employees, Weinzapfel adds.

The team at 7Analytics, according to Weinzapfel, “Are a bunch of smart flood experts and machine learning experts.” Together, they are introducing a technology that Weinzapfel calls “a game changer” for Houston businesses.

7Analytics uses AI to give users an overview of Houston’s potential flooding based on a 72-hour forecast. “Any business like a grocery store or hospitals or even a refinery—any business with employees or customers, it’s important to know Are the roadways being flooded? Can my employees and customers get in?” says Weinzapfel.

StormGeo has long provided weather insights and guidance to businesses in Houston. Now, detailed maps provide real-time flood forecasting.

The maps forecast the probability of flash flooding in each subbasin, but perhaps more importantly, they can home in on clients’ buildings to show what inundation will look like in parking lots and nearby roads.

"Our product takes a real-time StormGeo weather forecast — for example, the risk of rainfall tomorrow—and translates it into actionable risk info, such as their site is at risk of up to a foot of flooding tomorrow with peak flood occurring at 2 p.m.," explains Jonas Toland, co-founder of 7Analytics.

Armed with such information, businesses can adjust operations ahead. For example, one client is a grocery store chain.

“They have business processes they have to get a jump on. The locations that have customers try to be the last to close and first to open,” Weinzapfel says.

That means that storm tracking can help with letting the store’s team know to purchase more emergency supplies to sell, schedule more employees to help sell them, and know when to close to keep those workers safe.

The Houston version of the solution is the first, but Weinzapfel says that the team is currently working to expand across greater Houston and then into Austin.

“We knew if we could do it here and do a really good job, we could do it anywhere using the same technology,” he adds.

There’s no question that flooding will continue to take place in Houston. But with StormGeo and 7Analytics’ Houston-area flood model, the people that serve us will be prepared.

Let's talk about dark data — what it means and how to navigate it. Graphic by Miguel Tovar/University of Houston

Houston expert: Navigating dark data within research and innovation

houston voices

Is it necessary to share ALL your data? Is transparency a good thing or does it make researchers “vulnerable,” as author Nathan Schneider suggests in the Chronicle of Higher Education article, “Why Researchers Shouldn’t Share All Their Data.”

Dark Data Defined

Dark data is defined as the universe of information an organization collects, processes and stores – oftentimes for compliance reasons. Dark data never makes it to the official publication part of the project. According to the Gartner Glossary, “storing and securing data typically incurs more expense (and sometimes greater risk) than value.”

This topic is reminiscent of the file drawer effect, a phenomenon which reflects the influence of the results of a study on whether or not the study is published. Negative results can be just as important as hypotheses that are proven.

Publication bias and the need to only publish positive research that supports the PI’s hypothesis, it can be argued, is not good science. According to an article in the Indian Journal of Anaesthesia, authors Priscilla Joys Nagarajan, et al., wrote: “It is speculated that every significant result in the published world has 19 non-significant counterparts in file drawers.” That’s one definition of dark data.

Total Transparency

But what to do with all your excess information that did not make it to publication, most likely because of various constraints? Should everything, meaning every little tidbit, be readily available to the research community?

Schneider doesn’t think it should be. In his article, he writes that he hides some findings in a paper notebook or behind a password, and he keeps interviews and transcripts offline altogether to protect his sources.

Open-source

Open-source software communities tend to regard total transparency as inherently good. What are the advantages of total transparency? You may make connections between projects that you wouldn’t have otherwise. You can easily reproduce a peer’s experiment. You can even become more meticulous in your note-taking and experimental methods since you know it’s not private information. Similarly, journalists will recognize this thought pattern as the recent, popular call to engage in “open journalism.” Essentially, an author’s entire writing and editing process can be recorded, step by step.

TMI

This trend has led researchers to open-source programs like Jupyter and GitHub. Open-source programs detail every change that occurs along a project’s timeline. Is unorganized, excessive amounts of unpublishable data really what transparency means? Or does it confuse those looking for meaningful research that is meticulously curated?

The Big Idea

And what about the “vulnerability” claim? Sharing every edit and every new direction taken opens a scientist up to scoffers and harassment, even. Dark data in industry even involves publishing salaries, which can feel unfair to underrepresented, marginalized populations.

In Model View Culture, Ellen Marie Dash wrote: “Let’s give safety and consent the absolute highest priority, with openness and transparency prioritized explicitly below those. This means digging deep, properly articulating in detail what problems you are trying to solve with openness and transparency, and handling them individually or in smaller groups.”

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This article originally appeared on the University of Houston's The Big Idea. Sarah Hill, the author of this piece, is the communications manager for the UH Division of Research.

Alex Reed, co-founder and CEO of Fluence Analytics, joined InnovationMap for a Q&A on the company's move to Houston and its growth plans. Photo courtesy of Fluence Analytics

Fresh off $7.5M funding, this new-to-Houston tech company plans to grow and expand in life science space

q&A

Founded in 2012 in New Orleans, a tech company that provides software and hardware solutions for the chemicals industry has entered its next phase of growth by moving its headquarters to Houston following a $7.5 million venture capital raise.

Fluence Analytics, which announced its recent raise led by Yokogawa Electric Corp. last month, has officially moved to the Houston area. The company's new HQ is in Stafford. Alex Reed, co-founder and CEO of the company, joined InnovationMap for a Q&A about what led up to the move and the future of the company, which includes expanding into the life science field.

InnovationMap: Tell me about Fluence Analytics — what does the technology do and why did you decide to start the company?

Alex Reed: We have developed a patented technology that can optimize chemical production. We basically are able to measure what's happening in real time in a process. Imagine if you're baking a cake, and you follow this recipe and sometimes you get the cake you want, sometimes it's too dry, and sometimes it's not cooked enough. And so the polymers industry, for simplistic terms, has that type of an issue. You don't really know exactly where you're at your equipment behaves differently. Basically, what we're able to do is give them real-time information on what's happening as they're baking the cake so that every time they can get a perfect cake.

We have a software and hardware solution that we install in these plants to get these measurements so that our customers can optimize production — and they want to do that to improve their yield, reduce waste, increase safety, and improve quality. There are a lot of different reasons that companies are interested in our technology and we have managed to grow globally. We have customers in Asia, Europe, and the U.S.

We spun out of Tulane University. It's an interesting story because my dad is the inventor of the technology — he's a physics professor at Tulane. I grew up working in the lab with him literally since the age of 12, and I was super interested in technology and science and saw that he was working with all these chemical companies. They were always very interested in what he was working on. I got to the point where I realized that I didn't want to be a scientist — I was far more interested in the commercialization and how you go from lab to product. That transition is very difficult. So, I stepped into the role of the entrepreneur. We had the patents and technology for my dad, I had an excellent mentor, and then our other co-founder was a technical founder.

IM: When and why did you start considering an HQ move? 

AR: We raised our first institutional venture funding in April 2017. Up until that point, it was primarily working with customers and grant funding. We worked with actually a group that has an office here called Energy Innovation Capital. They came in and invested in us and supported us, and George Coyle joined our board.

So, we had that tie to Houston, and I was in Houston a lot because there was a concentration of partners and customers — and not just like chemical plant customers, but also technology and R&D centers. As we started to scale, we brought on some other investors — Mitsubishi Chemical, JSR Corp., and most recently Yokogawa Electric Corp., which has its North American headquarters in Sugar Land.

We started to just build momentum towards it. I'd say we first had the conversations pre-COVID and then COVID hit, and we'd kind of just stopped everything for a while, just to make sure we knew where the business was heading. We've made it through COVID fine and did well on coming out of it. Then we felt it was the right time to pick that thread back up. We knew it made sense. The labor pool is amazing here, and there's just so many reasons why we were looking at it. So then we just pulled the trigger.

IM: How did you decide on the Houston area? What drew you to Stafford?

AR: Initially, we had a little landing pad in the East End Maker Hub, so we got in there and they were awesome. We actually had started hiring remote people here in 2019 because we knew the move was going to happen at some point. We had a place for them to go work out of EEMH while we searched for a permanent facility. We connected with the Greater Houston Partnership, and they plugged us in to Houston Exponential, and they have been very good at introducing us to the right people. We just don't know the lay of the land to be honest, so they've been a great resource. We were looking originally on the northside of Houston, and then we saw the Stafford area. There's a huge concentration of similar type companies — automation, some software, some hardware. There were some tax advantages. We settled in the Stafford area and are very happy with the choice we made to end up here.

IM: I know you recently raised a $7.5M venture funding round. What does that funding mean for growth?

AR: Like any capital, the objective is to use it to grow. For us, "grow" has several different areas. One is the product. There's a very long roadmap of both hardware and software improvements that we want to make. So basically we're accelerating a lot of the things on our roadmap to do things like closed-loop control based on our data — imagine running a whole plant autonomously based on measurements that we're making. We're moving more and more toward that autonomous operation world and improving a lot of the actual underlying hardware, making the measurements, building out sales and marketing as we start to serve more and more customers. Product sales and marketing and customer success are the areas that we're scaling.

IM: As you grow your local team, what are you looking for?

AR: Field applications, software, some automation technicians, and more. We do have some life science applications. So, in addition to our core area on the chemical side, we have a product we've sold into biopharma, and so we want to grow some of that. We're actually hiring for a product manager for the life science side of the business. So, that one's a pretty unique opportunity and role.

IM: Considering your life science application, it seems like Houston is a good fit for that vertical as well, right?

AR: We're working with the Houston of today, but also the Houston of tomorrow, which is this life science play. The next phase is kind of following that innovation value chain. So, figuring out what's the R&D and manufacturing of these pharmaceuticals, and how you can attract more of those technology centers and factories to make the stuff here. If you look at the talent pool here, those resources are somewhat fungible with the resources that serve petrochemical and oil and gas.

This cross pollination I think actually could be quite an interesting differentiator for Houston if the city can build that critical mass. So yes, I think there is an opportunity for us to leverage this vision that Houston has for life science. Now, we'll still have to go to the coast to go to our customers, but I think talent pool, and eventually you might even have customers here. It's certainly feasible.

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This conversation has been edited for brevity and clarity.

Houston-based Corva, an AI-optimized analytics company, is in the process of hiring — a lot. Photo via corva.ai

Growing Houston energy tech company plans to hire 150 new employees this year

growing gains

While the oil and gas industry may be in store for sluggish growth in 2020, that's hardly the case for Houston-based energy tech startup Corva AI LLC.

Corva — which offers a real-time data analytics platform for drilling and completion (the stage when a well is prepared for production) — added 85 employees last year, mostly in Houston. And it's on track to make 150 new hires in 2020, including software developers, researchers, drilling engineers, and data analysts, says Courtney Diezi, the company's general manager. Two-thirds of this year's new hires will work in Houston, she says.

Diezi says the company's headcount currently stands at 120, with 100 employees in Houston and 20 in Ukraine.

Corva has expanded so much and so quickly that it outgrew its previous 11,000-square-foot office and is now at The Cannon, a coworking space and innovation hub in the Energy Corridor. It's set to move later this year to a new 40,000-square-foot space at The Cannon.

Founded in 2014 by CEO Ryan Dawson, Corva has raised just $3 million in outside funding to propel its growth.

"Our business has grown exponentially at the same pace as companies raising hundreds of millions in funding," Dawson says. "While the startup world has chased endless rounds of funding with the notion of either becoming a unicorn — or dying — we have focused on creating a company that cares deeply about our employees and a business that lasts 100 years."

Dawson describes Corva as the "modern brains" of drillings and completions. Oil and gas equipment sends millions of datapoints to Corva to help make complex decisions about drilling operations, she says. About 40 customers use Corva's technology.

In a 2019 news release, Dawson said Corva gauges its success "by the number of days we save on rigs, the costs we can quantifiably cut, and the number of catastrophic events we prevent." Corva's technology has saved millions of dollars for its customers and reduced the length of drilling projects by as many as three days, he said.

"Corva's challenge is to change the behavior of drillers who work for somebody else," the Journal of Petroleum Technology reported in 2019. "The fast-growing company has no shortage of users. Retaining those customers will require convincing oil companies that the real-time drilling data and analysis is creating enough value to justify the cost."

Corva's user-focused approach to developing technology helps attract and retain customers. Executives say they consider Corva a tech company that operates in the oil and gas sector rather than an oil and gas company that happens to develop software.

"Our software platform rivals Netflix and Twitter in terms of giant datasets and real-time processing," Diezi says. "Without a core expertise and founding team in software, we wouldn't be able to provide the amazing technology we do — it's too central to what we do. Corva is the perfect mixture of oil industry veterans and software whiz kids. Our customers love to work with us because we speak their language but provide world-class products solving hard problems."

As it continues to enlarge its workforce, Corva seeks to foster a workplace that embraces both oil industry veterans and software whiz kids.

"We want to be the most admired workplace in Houston, with a Google-like status both for our amazing products and our company culture," Diezi says.

This growing Houston company is providing industrial industries with smart analytics. Getty Images

Houston software company looks to grow its workforce internationally

Staffing up

A Houston-based analytics-focused company is gearing up for growth in 2019 and plans to staff up its headquarters and remote offices abroad.

Arundo Analytics Inc. brings industrial companies — which sometimes are slow to adopt brand-new technology — into the world of machine learning and advanced analytics to help boost revenue, cut costs and reduce risks.

The startup's enterprise software gives asset-heavy industrial businesses "a virtual window into their day-to-day operations," says Stuart Morstead, co-founder and chief operating officer of Arundo. Among the operations that benefit from software are equipment maintenance, safety, logistics and scheduling.

Morstead points out that most industrial companies that encounter issues with operations such as equipment maintenance "lack the data science and software capabilities to drive value from insights into their daily operations."

Arundo aims to solve that problem by incorporating machine learning and advanced analytics — the kind of innovations emanating from the likes of Amazon, Google, and IBM — into everyday business operations at industrial companies, says Morstead, a former partner at consulting firm McKinsey & Co. and a graduate of Rice University.

Aside from its broad enterprise software, Arundo supplies out-of-the-box applications that tackle individual industrial challenges like flow metering for the offshore oil and gas industry and monitoring the condition of equipment. The virtual cloud-based multiphase flow meter is sold as part of a software package from industrial technology giant ABB.

More than 50 of Arundo's estimated 110 employees work on that technology from the startup's headquarters in downtown Houston. To propel its growth, Arundo plans to add employees this year in Houston as well as its other offices in Canada, Norway, Sweden and the United Kingdom, according to Morstead.

In 2016, Arundo graduated from Stanford University's StartX accelerator program. A year later, Arundo was named to the MIT STEX25 accelerator program by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Startup Exchange.

Since its founding in 2015, Arundo has raised more $35 million in capital, including a Series A round of $28 million that closed in the first half of 2018. Investors include Sundt AS, Stokke Industri, Horizon, Canica, Strømstangen, Arctic Fund Management, Stanford-StartX Fund and Northgate Partners.

Aside from drawing more funding in 2018, the startup set up several strategic partnerships designed to increase the adoption of Arundo's software in sectors such as oil and gas, manufacturing, shipping, construction and maritime. Among the new partners are Dell Technologies, DNV GL's Veracity platform and WorleyParsons.

Going forward, Morstead says Arundo aims to bring its software expertise, business prowess and "world-class data science" to even more industrial companies and their physical assets as part of the global Industrial Internet of Things sector. That market is projected to approach $1 trillion by 2025, up from $100 billion in 2016.

To be sure, Arundo is competing in a market that's rife with opportunity. Consulting firm Accenture estimates the IIoT market could add $14.2 trillion to the global economy by 2030.

"Arguably the biggest driver of productivity and growth in the next decade, the Industrial Internet of Things will accelerate the reinvention of sectors that account for almost two-thirds of world output," the Accenture report says.

Tor Jakob Ramsøy, founder and CEO of Arundo, certainly grasps the enormous potential of IIoT.

"Asset-heavy companies can no longer afford to make business decisions based on an incomplete view of their organization," Ramsøy, a former McKinsey partner, said in a 2018 news release. "By combining deep data and [artificial intelligence] knowledge with decades of cumulative experience in enterprise consulting, Arundo is ushering in a new era in IIoT."

Tracking performance

Courtesy of Arundo

Arundo's Condition & Performance Monitoring Software can easily be plugged into a company's system and track its equipment using cloud technology.

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Who are Houston's top innovators? Nominate now for 2026 Houston Innovation Awards

Calling All Innovators

Calling all Houston innovators: The 2026 Houston Innovation Awards, presented by InnovationMap, return this fall to celebrate the best and brightest in the Houston innovation ecosystem right now.

We're asking you to nominate Houston's top innovators and startups for this year's awards. Nominations are open now through August 27 and can be made on behalf of yourself, your organization, and other influential leaders in the local innovation scene.

The annual awards program recognizes the most innovative individuals and companies in Houston across 10 prestigious categories.

This year's awards will honor the following categories:

  • Minority-founded Business, honoring an innovative startup founded or co-founded by BIPOC or LGBTQ+ representation.
  • Female-founded Business, honoring an innovative startup founded or co-founded by a woman.
  • Energy Transition Business, honoring an innovative startup providing a solution within renewables, climatetech, clean energy, alternative materials, circular economy, and beyond.
  • Health Tech Business, honoring an innovative startup within the health and medical technology sectors.
  • Deep Tech Business, honoring an innovative startup providing technology solutions based on substantial scientific or engineering challenges, including those in the AI, robotics, and space sectors.
  • Startup of the Year (People's Choice), honoring a startup celebrating a recent milestone or success. The winner will be selected by the community via an interactive voting experience.
  • Scaleup of the Year, honoring an innovative later-stage startup that's recently reached a significant milestone in company growth.
  • Incubator/Accelerator of the Year, honoring a local incubator or accelerator that is championing and fueling the growth of Houston startups.
  • Mentor of the Year, honoring an individual who dedicates their time and expertise to guide and support budding entrepreneurs.
  • Trailblazer, honoring an innovator who's made a lasting impact on the Houston innovation community.

You have three weeks to submit nominees, so don't delay — nominate today at this link or fill out the form below. Qualified nominees will receive a formal application to complete, which will be reviewed by our esteemed panel of judges to determine the finalists and winners.

More announcements about the 2026 Houston Innovation Awards are coming soon, including an introduction to this year's panel of judges. Interested in sponsoring the 2026 Houston Innovation Awards? Please contact sales@innovationmap.com.

KBR unveils name, branding for new government services spinoff

new identity

Houston-based KBR Inc.'s new Mission Technology Solutions unit officially has a name.

The previously announced government services spinoff, which until now has been nicknamed SpinCo, will now be known as Trinzic. The company said in a news release that the name was inspired by the word intrinsic, "reflecting essential, built-in capabilities and deep expertise operating in some of the world’s most complex and mission-critical environments."

New York-based firm Siegel + Gale developed the company's new brand. In addition to the new name, the company shares that its new logo will feature a stylized letter N, with brand colors in orange and gray.

“Trinzic represents who KBR Mission Tech has always been at our core: an essential partner bringing innovation and trusted execution to the missions that matter most,” Stuart Bradie, KBR President and CEO, said in the release. “The new Trinzic brand represents both our strong heritage and the tremendous opportunity ahead. Our teams aim to deliver solutions that address some of the world’s most critical national priorities every day, and this new identity captures the purpose-driven culture and mission focus that we expect to continue to define the company moving forward.”

KBR expects the spin-off to be completed in January 2027. At that time, Trinzic will operate as an independent, publicly traded company that will focus on technology and engineering services for the space and national security sectors.

KBR will remain a separate publicly traded company that will focus on sustainable technology and services to support the energy transition. KBR first announced the spinoff plans in October 2025.

Last month, KBR announced two C-suite hires for Trinzic, or what was then known as SpinCo.

Michael LaRouche will serve as Trinzic's inaugural president and CEO. LaRouche is currently CEO of Serco North America, a Virginia-based government services contractor. Nicholas Veasey, current CFO of Virginia-based MAG Aerospace, was named Trinzic's CFO. Bradie will remain chairman, president and CEO of KBR.

Rice lands $19 million grant to build AI-driven quantum materials lab

Quantum Boost

Rice University has received a $19.9 million award from the National Science Foundation to increase the production of quantum and electronic materials by using a combination of artificial intelligence, cloud-based labs and robotics.

The four-year project will create a remote and automated research platform that aims to accelerate discovery and the testing process, according to Rice. The aptly titled project, "Revolutionizing AI-Driven Autonomous Experimentation for Next-Generation Semiconductor Synthesis” (READINESS), will be led by Rice materials scientist Jun Lou, who serves as principal investigator. SUNY Polytechnic Institute and the University of Texas at Austin will collaborate with Rice on the project.

At first, READINESS will focus on two-dimensional materials, oxide semiconductors and diamond thin films that can support emerging technologies, like quantum devices.

READINESS is one of 20 projects selected for the NSF's Programmable Cloud Laboratories Test Bed initiative, which aims to provide more U.S. researchers with access to automated scientific tools.

Additionally, the project aligns with the Department of Energy’s Genesis Mission, which recently selected four projects from Houston universities and companies, including two from Rice. The national initiative aims to unite government, industry, academia and philanthropy to lead to breakthroughs in energy, scientific discovery and national security.

READINESS will offer more advanced lab systems remotely via a cloud interface to assist startups, other research groups, and companies that don’t have the resources, staffing or equipment to produce quantum materials and advanced electronics. READINESS will also allow researchers to simulate experiments via virtual experiments or digital twins before they conduct the physical experiment.

Rice says this will be particularly useful in quantum materials research, which is often met with barriers— like the adjustments of chemical composition, gas flow, pressure, and temperature—that can change the properties of a material.

“This project will give researchers access to capabilities that have traditionally been available only in a handful of laboratories,” David Sholl, executive vice president for research at Rice, said in a news release. “By lowering those barriers, READINESS can accelerate discovery and expand who can participate in cutting-edge materials research.”

Additionally, the project’s AI aspect will offer recommendations for new tests, recognize safety limits and analyze results to assist researchers.

“Responsible AI should complement researchers’ capabilities rather than replace their judgment,” Luay Nakhleh, Dean of Rice’s George R. Brown School of Engineering and Computing, added in the release. “READINESS embodies this principle by combining automated systems with transparency, safeguards and human oversight at critical decision points.”

READINESS’ lab will be based out of Rice’s Ralph S. O’Connor Building for Engineering and Science. Partner sites will also contribute equipment, expertise and workforce development programs, according to Rice.

Ultimately, READINESS aims to elevate the speed, reliability and reproducibility of experiments, and to promote access to automated scientific tools for U.S. researchers.

“Our goal is to create a laboratory that researchers from across the country can use to produce advanced electronic and quantum materials on demand,” Lou added in the release. “By integrating robotics, AI and digital twins, we aim to learn from every experiment and shorten the pathway from scientific discovery to practical technology.”

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