Venus Aerospace closes $91 million Series B to scale hypersonic engine

flight funding

Venus Aerospace has secured funding from Mercury Fund, Lockheed Martin Ventures and others. Photo courtesy Venus Aerospace

Houston-based Venus Aerospace has closed a $91 million Series B round and plans to scale the production of its hypersonic engine.

The round was led by Houston-based Mercury Fund with participation from Lockheed Martin Ventures, MESH, PEAK6, Draper Associates, Starboard Star Venture Capital, Green Sands Equity and other investors, according to a news release.

The investment comes about a year after Venus completed the first U.S. flight test of its high-thrust rotating detonation rocket engine (RDRE). The engine is expected to enable vehicles to travel four to six times the speed of sound from a conventional runway and is about 15 percent more efficient than traditional alternatives, according to the company.

Venus Aerospace says the latest round of funding will allow it to move the RDRE from demonstration to deployment and meet customer requirements for the near-term defense and space industries. The company says that the reusable RDRE is designed with a "common propulsion architecture" that can work for multiple industries and mission types.

“This financing marks an important step in moving Venus from breakthrough demonstration to scaled capability,” Sassie Duggleby, co-founder and CEO, said in the news release. “Our customers need propulsion systems that go farther, can be produced reliably and are built on supply chains they can trust. We are advancing that capability with American engineering and manufacturing talent to strengthen U.S. defense, expand space access and support the future of high-speed flight.”

Venus Aerospace raised a $20 million Series A in 2022, led by Wyoming-based Prime Movers Lab. At the time, the company said it would put the funding toward three main technologies: a next-generation rocket engine, aircraft shape and leading-edge cooling system.

The company also picked up an investment from Lockheed Martin Ventures, the investment arm of aerospace and defense contractor Lockheed Martin, in November 2025—in addition to funding from other investors over the years.

“Since our initial investment, Venus has progressed very quickly in its technology development," Chris Moran, vice president and general manager of Lockheed Martin Ventures, added in the release. "Our reinvestment in Venus recognizes Venus’ accomplishments to date and focus on speed to manufacture, cost management and reduction of supply chain constraints. Venus is working effectively to position its propulsion system for the production scale required by defense programs.”

"Venus is exactly the kind of company Houston capital should be backing," Blair Garrou, co-founder and managing partner at Mercury Fund, added in the release. "It combines multiple frontier technologies, domestic manufacturing and clear commercial and national security relevance. We believe this team is positioned to lead an important new chapter in defense and space, and we are proud to support a company building breakthrough technology here in Texas."

Venus Aerospace and Houston clean tech startup Vaulted Deep were named to the World Economic Forum's Technology Pioneers community earlier this summer. Read more here.

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The new AI Native Dual-Use Sports, Health & Wellness Accelerator is expected to launch in March. Photo courtesy of the Ion

New accelerator for AI startups to launch at Houston's Ion this spring

The Collectiv Foundation and Rice University have established a sports, health and wellness startup accelerator at the Ion District’s Collectiv, a sports-focused venture capital platform.

The AI Native Dual-Use Sports, Health & Wellness Accelerator, scheduled to formally launch in March, will back early-stage startups developing AI for the sports, health and wellness markets. Accelerator participants will gain access to a host of opportunities with:

  • Mentors
  • Advisers
  • Pro sports teams and leagues
  • University athletics programs
  • Health care systems
  • Corporate partners
  • VC firms
  • Pilot projects
  • University-based entrepreneurship and business initiatives

Accelerator participants will focus on sports tech verticals inlcuding performance and health, fan experience and media platforms, data and analytics, and infrastructure.

“Houston is quickly becoming one of the most important innovation hubs at the intersection of sports, health, and AI,” Ashley DeWalt, co-founder and managing partner of The Collectiv and founder of The Collectiv Foundation, said in a news release.

“By launching this platform with Rice University in the Ion District,” he added, “we are building a category-defining acceleration engine that gives founders access to world-class research, global sports properties, hospital systems, and venture capital. This is about turning sports-validated technology into globally scalable companies at a moment when the world’s attention is converging on Houston ahead of the 2026 World Cup.”

The Collectiv accelerator will draw on expertise from organizations such as the Rice-Houston Methodist Center for Human Performance, Rice Brain Institute, Rice Gateway Project and the Texas Medical Center.

“The combination of Rice University’s research leadership, Houston’s unmatched health ecosystem, and The Collectiv’s operator-driven investment platform creates a powerful acceleration engine,” Blair Garrou, co-founder and managing partner of the Mercury Fund VC firm and a senior adviser for The Collectiv, added in the release.

Additional details on programming, partners and application timelines are expected to be announced in the coming weeks.

Paul Frison, the founder of the Houston Technology Center, has died. Photo via dignitymemorial.com

Houston Technology Center founder dies, leaves legacy of innovation

saying goodbye

The Houston innovation ecosystem is mourning the loss of one of its early leaders, Paul Frison, who died on September 5. He was 87.

A long-time Houston businessman, Frison founded the Houston Technology Center in 1999 and served as its CEO and president. The organization evolved into Houston Exponential several years ago. Frison remained active within Houston innovation until 2020.

“Paul Frison was a visionary and energetic leader who always presented a positive outlook on what the Houston technology entrepreneurship community could become," Brad Burke, associate vice president for industry and new ventures at Rice University's Office of Innovation, remembers. "He was one of the pioneers in the community who established the Houston Technology Center as one of the early leaders of the Houston ecosystem. I admired how he helped launch the ecosystem and created the platform for many others to build upon.”

Prior to HTC, he served in various executive roles at American Hospital Supply, LifeMark, ComputerCraft, and LifeCell, spending the last 50 of his years in Houston. Born in Glendale, California, he served in the Unites States Coast Guard.

Blair Garrou, co-founder and managing director of Mercury Fund, says Frison was his first boss and mentor in the tech and entrepreneurship sector.

“When people look back to how the Houston tech community was founded, it starts with Paul Frison," Garrou says. "Paul had run multiple companies and I was lucky to have him as CEO when I worked for him at the Houston Technology Center. He quickly became a mentor, and over time, a good friend and confidant. I have Paul to thank for launching my career in tech and venture capital.

"My favorite quote of Paul’s was, 'Do not confuse effort with results,'” Garrou continues. "Despite his results-driven work ethic – which was legendary — Paul was also deeply-rooted in family and faith, and has been a role model for me over my entire professional life.”

He is preceded in death by his wife, Barbara, and his grandson, Christian David Elders. He is survived by his daughters Maryanne Elders and Jill Cortez and their families, including grandchildren Matthew Elders, Laney Elders, Max Cortez, Jake Cortez, and Sofie Cortez.

A celebration of life will be held for Frison on September 16 at 1 pm at Second Baptist Church, with a reception following in the Deacon’s Parlor. More details are available online. In lieu of flowers, Frison's wishes were for for donations to Second Baptist Church to be made in his honor.

Originally expected to raise $150 million, Mercury's latest fund is the largest raised to date. Photo via mercuryfund.com

Houston-based VC secures oversubscribed $160M fund for early-stage startups

show me the money

A Houston venture capital firm has announce big news of its latest fund.

Mercury, founded in 2005 to invest in startups not based in major tech hubs on either coast, closed its latest fund, Mercury Fund V, at an oversubscribed amount of $160 million. Originally expected to raise $150 million, Fund V is the largest fund Mercury has raised to date.

“We are pleased by the substantial support we received for Fund V from both new and existing investors and thank them for placing their confidence in Mercury,” Blair Garrou, co-founder and managing director of Mercury Fund, says in a news release. “Their support is testament to the strength of our team, proven investment strategy, and the compelling opportunities for innovation that exist in cities across America.”

The fund's limited partners include new and existing investors, including endowments at universities, foundations, and family offices. Mercury reports that several of these LPs are based in the central region of the United States where Mercury invests. California law firm Gunderson Dettmer was the fund formation counsel for Mercury.

Fresh closed, Fund V has already made investments in several companies, including:

  • Houston-based RepeatMD, a patient engagement and fintech platform for medical professionals with non-insurance reimbursed services and products
  • Houston and Cheyenne Wyoming-based financial infrastructure tech platform Brassica, which raised its $8 million seed round in April
  • Polco, a Madison, Wisconsin-based polling platform for local governments, school districts, law enforcement, and state agencies
  • Chicago-based MSPbots, a AI-powered process automation platform for small and mid-sized managed service providers

Mercury's investment model is described as "operationally-focused," and the firm works to provide its portfolio companies with the resources needed to grow rapidly and sustainably. Since 2013, the fund has contributed to creating more than $9 billion of enterprise value across its portfolio of over 50 companies.

“Over the past few years there has been a tremendous migration of talent, wealth and know-how to non-coastal venture markets and this surge of economic activity has further accelerated the creation of extraordinary new companies and technology," says Garrou. "As the first venture capital firm to have recognized the attractiveness of these incredible regions a dozen years ago, we are excited to continue sourcing new opportunities to back founders and help these cities continue to grow and thrive.”

A Houston fintech startup is aiming to modernize banking and investing — and has received fresh funding to do it. Photo via Getty Images

Houston fintech startup raises $8M seed round led by local VC

fresh funds

A Houston startup has raised millions for its fintech platform — and the company didn't have to go very far to find its lead investor.

Brassica Technologies Inc. closed its seed round at $8 million with Houston-based Mercury Fund leading the round. Valor Equity Partners, Long Journey Ventures, NGC Fund, Neowiz, Broadhaven Ventures, Armyn Capital, VC3DAO, Alpha Asset Management (Korea), and other global FinTech investors participated in the round as well.

The startup's platform has "institutional-grade solutions for the new era of private investing and alternative assets," per the release. Serving the alternative assets industry, Brassica's tools can easily integrate with any operating system to provide proprietary technology and unique regulatory licenses. The technology aims to modernize key banking and investing infrastructure to help enterprises safely grow their business and protect their customer assets.

With its "investment infrastructure as a service" model, Brassica was co-founded in 2021 by two familiar faces in Houston's fintech scene. CEO Youngro Lee and CTO Bob Dunton were behind NextSeed, a crowdfunding platform that allowed businesses to raise investment funding online. The startup was acquired in 2020 by Republic, where Lee currently serves as executive vice president and head of Asia.

“The future of finance will depend on the ability of trustworthy institutions to provide secure and seamless transitions between traditional financial services and web3 innovations while complying with strict regulations and still providing great customer experience,” says Lee in the news release.

“Today’s infrastructure solutions for alternative assets are often cobbled together through multiple incompatible vendors in a complex regulatory environment, which often creates unreasonable risk, errors, and single points of failure for market participants," he continues. "We started Brassica to address this fundamental problem and provide solutions to enable innovators in both traditional and web3 industries to build properly within a constantly evolving global regulatory framework.”

Along with the seed round news, the company has announced that Brassica Trust Company, its wholly-owned subsidiary, has received a Trust Charter by the Wyoming State Banking Board.

“The revolution of the private markets is here, and it is clear that the traditional, legacy infrastructure currently in place is not designed for the present and future investment world,” says Blair Garrou, managing director at Mercury Fund, in the release. “Brassica’s API-forward, institutional grade solutions make investing in private and digital assets more trustworthy, compliant, and secure than ever before, further bridging the gap between the worlds of traditional and decentralized finance. Their highly qualified and experienced senior business, legal, and technology executive team makes Brassica well-positioned to usher in this new era of alternative investments. We are proud to support Brassica on their ongoing mission to democratize finance globally.”

The company plans to use the funding to grow its product, engineering, business development, and customer success teams, per the news release, as well as develop a trust operations team in Wyoming. Current leadership includes former execs from Republic, Cleary Gottlieb, Kirkland Ellis, Morgan Stanley, Custodia Bank, LedgerX, Prime Trust, JP Morgan Chase, and M1 Finance.

Youngro Lee has announced funding for his latest fintech endeavor. Photo courtesy

If you feel like it's hard to find venture capitalists in Houston, you wouldn't be wrong, according to this Houston investor. Photo via Getty Images

Houston investor outlines how rare VCs are in Houston — and how to find them

guest column

As a venture capitalist and former startup founder living in Houston, I get asked a lot about the best way to find and connect with a venture capitalist in Houston. My usual advice is to start with a list, and reach out to everyone on that list. But no one has a comprehensive list. In fact, VCs are such a quiet bunch that I’ve yet to meet someone who personally knows everyone on this proverbial list.

So, I got together with a couple of VC friends of mine, and we put together our own Houston venture capitalist list.

There are, by our count, 11 active venture capital funds headquartered in Houston of any size and type, and outside of corporate venture capital and angel investors, there are 30 total venture capitalists running funds.

Houston has always been quite thin on the VC fund front. I’ve jokingly introduced myself for a while as “one of the 13 venture capitalists in Houston.”

Let’s put this scale in some brutal perspective. With 7.2 million people in the Greater Houston Metro Area, the odds of finding a partner level active venture capitalist in Houston is about 1 in 240,000, if you take a most expanded definition of venture capitalist that might come down to 1 in 100,000. We’re the fifth largest metropolitan area in the country with a tremendous economic engine; there is a ton of capital in Houston, but it’s residing in things like institutional fixed income and equities, real estate, wealth management, corporate, private equity, family office, energy and infrastructure Basically, mostly everywhere but in venture capital funds for tech startups.

By comparison, there are almost as many Fortune 500 CEOs in Houston — 24, by our count — as venture capitalists and fewer venture capitalists than Fortune 1000 CEOs, of which there are 43. That means running into a VC in the checkout line at HEB is about as rare as running into the CEO of CenterPoint, ConocoPhillips, or Academy. In fact, as there are 115 cities in the Greater Houston area, you are three times more likely to be a mayor in Greater Houston Area than a partner at an investor at a VC firm, and more likely to be a college or university president. While we’re at it, you’re 400 times more likely to be a lawyer, 250 times more likely to be a CPA, and over 650 times more likely to be a medical doctor.

Our 30 venture capitalists in the Greater Houston Area are spread across 20 firms and all major venture sectors and stages. Venture capitalist is defined for this list as a full time managing director or partner-level investment professional actively running a venture capital fund with limited partners, currently investing in new venture capital deals from their fund from seed to growth stage, and residing in the Greater Houston Metro area.

To get to 31 we added in a couple of people running venture set asides for PE funds, and a number who work from Houston for funds with no office here. We excluded CVCs, as the decision making is more corporate than individual and rarely includes the committed fund and carried interest structure that defines venture capital, and excluded professionals at angel networks, accelerators, and seed funds that provide investment, but don’t manage conventional venture capital funds, as well as PE funds that do the occasional venture deal. We might be able to triple the number if we include venture capitalists at any professional level, and add in those professionals at PE and angel and seed funds, and corporate venture capital teams who are actively investing. But we’ll get to those other sources of funding in the next list.

The 11 venture capital funds headquartered in Houston are: Mercury, Energy Transition Ventures (my fund), Montrose Lane (formerly called Cottonwood), Texas Medical Center Venture Fund, Artemis, New Climate Ventures, Fitz Gate Ventures, Curate Capital, Knightsgate Ventures, Amplo Ventures,and First Bight Ventures.

Another half a dozen firms have a partner level venture capital investor here, but are headquartered elsewhere: Energy Innovation Capital, Decarbonization Partners, 1984 Ventures, Altitude Ventures, Ascension Ventures, Moneta Ventures, and MKB & Co. Two others, CSL Ventures and SCF Partners, are local private equity funds with a venture capital partner in Houston and a dedicated allocation from a PE fund.

Culling these for partner or managing director level currently in Houston, in alphabetical order by first name, LinkedIn profile and all.

We may have missed a couple of VCs hiding in plain sight, as venture capital is a pretty dynamic business.

VCs are just rare. And yes, perhaps more rare in Houston than in California. Something less than 1 in 100 VCs in the country live in Houston. Across the US there are somewhere around 1,000 to 2,000 active venture capital firms, and maybe another 1,000 to 2,000 active US based CVCs — so, plus or minus maybe at most 4,000 to 5,000 currently active partner level venture capitalists in the country excluding CVC professionals (active VCs and VC funds are really hard to count).

Perhaps in the most stunning statistic, the 7,386 elected state legislators in the US today outnumber the total number of American venture capitalists. Luckily for startup founders, the venture capitalists are more likely to return your phone call.

------

Neal Dikeman is a venture capitalist and seven-time startup co-founder investing out of Energy Transition Ventures. He’s currently hosting the Venture Capital for First Time Founders Series at the Ion, where ETV is headquartered.

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Meet the esteemed judges for the 2026 Houston Innovation Awards

Meet The Judges

Editor's note: Judging is now underway for the 2026 Houston Innovation Awards, and it's time to meet the decision makers.

Our 2026 judging panel comprises past award winners who represent a variety of industries and areas of expertise. They are joined by InnovationMap's interim editor. All are deeply engaged in the Houston innovation ecosystem.

Our judging panel will review all nominee applications submitted across 10 prestigious categories. They will determine the 2026 finalists in all categories, and they will select the winners in all but one category — our people's choice award for Startup of the Year.

The sixth annual Houston Innovation Awards program will be presented in an all-digital format in 2026. We will announce this year's finalists and feature their stories throughout our special editorial series this fall. Then, stay tuned as we reveal the 2026 Houston Innovation Awards winners on InnovationMap.com in mid-November.

Sagar Dalal, Fervo Energy, 2025 Scaleup of the Year

Sagar Dalal

Sagar Dalal serves as chief of staff at Fervo Energy, a company pioneering the commercialization of next-generation geothermal power. In this role, he helps translate the CEO’s vision and priorities into execution, leading cross-functional strategic initiatives that support the company’s growth and operations.

Dalal brings nearly eight years of experience in structural engineering and project management from his time at Thornton Tomasetti and Tesla, where he engineered and built a wide range of infrastructure projects ranging from stadiums to manufacturing facilities. He holds an MBA from Stanford University and an MS in Civil Engineering from Texas A&M University. He is also a licensed professional engineer.

Aaron Fitzgerald, Mars Materials, 2025 Minority-founded Business of the Year

Aaron Fitzgerald

Aaron Fitzgerald is a three-time founder and carbon removal entrepreneur focused on reimagining how we make things. As the CEO of Mars Materials, he leads a team working to commercialize technologies that sequester captured carbon into industrial supply chains.

His vision for a defossilized future is shaped by a unique path through both policy, including a tenure in the United States Senate, and deep carbontech, with fellowships at The Lewis Latimer program, Breakthrough Energy, Prime Coalition, and Carbon 180.

Tatiana Fofanova, Koda Health, 2025 Health Tech Business of the Year

Tatiana Fofonova

Tatiana Fofanova, PhD, is the co-founder and CEO of Koda Health, an AI-enhanced patient decision support platform designed to make advance care planning (ACP) scalable, accessible, and patient-centered for patients with serious illness.

After earning her PhD in Translational Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine, she joined Texas Medical Center (TMC) as a Founder-in-Residence. It was there that she and her co-founders identified one of the most overlooked yet critical gaps in healthcare: the lack of meaningful, accessible advance care planning. Under her leadership, Koda Health now supports over 1 million patients through partnerships with organizations like Cigna, Privia, and Houston Methodist.

Lawson Gow, Greentown Labs, 2025 Incubator/Accelerator of the Year

Lawson Gow currently serves as chief strategy officer for Greentown Labs, which was named Incubator/Accelerator of the Year in the 2025 Houston Innovation Awards. Prior to joining Greentown Labs as Head of Houston in 2025, Gow was as a managing partner at Helium Capital, an investment and advisory firm that aims to support founders across the entire lifecycle of entrepreneurship.

He is also the founder of The Cannon, an innovation-infrastructure provider that operates a growing network of innovation hubs for its community of startups, entrepreneurs, investors, and corporate innovators.

Sarah Hein, March Biosciences, 2025 Female-founded Business of the Year

Sarah Hein

Sarah Hein is the founding CEO of March Biosciences, a clinical-stage cell-therapy company targeting challenging malignancies. Prior to cofounding March Biosciences, she was the founding Entrepreneur in Residence for the Texas Medical Center Innovation Accelerator for Cancer Therapeutics (TMCi ACT).

Formerly, she was a cofounder and the vice president of operations at Courier Therapeutics, a cancer immunotherapy startup acquired by Valo Health. She was also director of research at Resonant Therapeutics, an antibody therapeutics platform technology company. She began at Mercury Fund as a Venture Fellow directly after graduating with her PhD in Molecular Biology from Baylor College of Medicine.

Tanu Jain, FlowCare, 2025 Startup of the Year

Tanu Jain

Tanu Jain is a product executive, entrepreneur, founder and CEO of FlowCare, and registered nurse with a track record of building products from zero to global scale. She previously led product at BioIQ before founding FlowCare, a Houston-based period care infrastructure platform making period care a standard in every restroom. In under 16 months, FlowCare has signed deployed across four enterprise customers and impacted more than 1.5 million women.

FlowCare was named Startup of the Year at the 2025 Houston Innovation Awards, and Jain has been recognized with additional honors including the SDG Super Changemaker – Pewter — at the Global Sustainability Awards 2026.

Prabhdeep "Prab" Sekhon, Eclipse Energy, 2025 Energy Transition Business of the Year

Prabhdeep Singh Sekhon

Prabhdeep Singh Sekhon is CEO of Eclipse Energy, an energy technology company transforming depleted oil fields into low-cost, sustainable hydrogen resources through subsurface biotechnology. He brings nearly two decades of global energy experience spanning climate technology, venture capital, private equity, and multi-billion-dollar energy projects across five continents.

Previously, he held leadership roles at NextEra Energy Resources and Hess Corporation. He is also a founder and managing director of GreenLite Resources and a founding member of Cotogna Sports Group. He holds an MBA from Wharton, a Masters in Engineering from Texas A&M, and a BS from the University of Calgary.

Wade Pinder, Product Houston, 2025 Trailblazer Award Winner

Wade Pinder thinks of himself as an "ecosystem wayseeker," helping founders and builders in and around Houston find their footing, understand the landscape, and move through uncertainty with more clarity. Through Product Houston, he works at the intersection of product strategy, founder support, ecosystem mapping, and community-building, with a particular focus on helping people show up in the right rooms before they feel fully ready.

His background includes years in product management at Blinds.com and Home Depot, along with founding and leading the Houston Product Community for six years. He was recognized by as Mentor of the Year in the 2023 Houston Innovation Awards and received the Trailblazer Award in 2025.

Laura Furr Mericas, Interim Editor, InnovationMap

Laura Furr Mericas is interim editor for InnovatonMap.com and EnergyCapitalHTX.com. She is a longtime contributor to both sites and has reported on Houston's innovation ecosystem for InnovationMap since 2020. Previously, she served as web editor and data reporter for Houston Business Journal.

Report: Income for top 1 percent earners in Texas has surged in 2026

money matters

In a state where local billionaires are wealthier than they've ever been, high-earning Texans need to make $73,000 more than they did a year ago if they want to be among the top 1 percent of earners, a new report has revealed.

SmartAsset's study analyzed income thresholds for the top 1, 5, and 10 percent of earners in all 50 states and the District of Columbia, using 2022 IRS data for individual tax return filers (the most recent year available), adjusted to 2026 dollars.

Texas has the 11th highest income threshold, with residents needing to make a minimum of $817,158 to be considered among the top 1 percent of earners statewide. In 2025, Texans needed to make about $744,000 to be among the top 1 percent.

For comparison, residents living in the nation's capital must make at least $1.16 million to qualify as top 1 percent earners. The District of Columbia led the nation with the highest income threshold to be a top earner.

To be considered among the top 5 percent of earners in Texas, a resident would need to make $312,671. The income threshold to be considered among the top 10 percent is $210,609.

SmartAsset additionally found that 128,130 Texas residents qualified as top 1 percent earners in 2022. Nationally, the report estimated that fewer than 2 million households earn enough to be considered among the top 1 percent of earners nationwide, but 23 million households rank among the top 10 percent.

"In some places, households can enter the top 1 percent at income levels that fall well below the threshold elsewhere, reflecting an uneven landscape of wages and wealth," the report said.

A separate SmartAsset study that tracked the upper and lower thresholds for middle class households found Houston residents need to make anywhere from $42,907 to $128,722 to maintain their middle class status.

The top 10 states with the highest thresholds to be considered in the top 1 percent of earners in the U.S. are:

  • No. 1 – District of Columbia ($1,156,664)
  • No. 2 – Connecticut ($1,147,898)
  • No. 3 – Massachusetts ($1,006,921)
  • No. 4 – California ($987,325)
  • No. 5– New Jersey ($969,976)
  • No. 6 – New York ($959,562)
  • No. 7 – Florida ($956,449)
  • No. 8 – Washington ($903,303)
  • No. 9 – Colorado ($828,772)
  • No. 10 – Wyoming ($819,014)
---

This article originally appeared on CultureMap.com.

Here’s where wages grew the most in Houston since 2021, according to new report

pay raise

Bolstered by a thriving manufacturing sector, Waller County—the country’s second-fastest-growing county—leads all Houston-area counties for the growth of pay from 2021 to 2026, according to a new study.

The study, conducted by personal finance website SmartAsset, found average pay in Waller County rose 48 percent from 2021 to 2026. The county’s average weekly pay climbed from $891 to $1,323 during that period.

Manufacturing ranks as the No. 1 employment sector in Waller County, accounting for about 4,500 workers, according to Executive Pulse. Those workers earn an average pay of $77,442 per year.

Waller County powers up its manufacturing hub

Waller County’s manufacturing economy keeps expanding, almost certainly contributing to the 48 percent spike in average pay from 2021 to 2026.

Grundfos, the world’s largest producer of water pumps, broke ground in June on a manufacturing plant at its Brookshire campus. The Danish company’s U.S. headquarters is in Brookshire. In conjunction with the groundbreaking, Grundfos opened the Grundfos Academy Americas training center.

The new 143,000-square-foot facility will make pump systems and water technology, primarily for water utilities and commercial real estate landlords.

Grundfos expects construction to be completed by Q3 2027, with the first production lines planned to start in Q4 of next year.

“Our growing presence in Brookshire reflects both our confidence in the U.S. market and our long‑term commitment to investing where our customers and partners need us most,” Grundfos CEO Poul Due Jensen said in a release.

Another manufacturer, TMEIC Corporation America, recently opened its third U.S. plant at Twinwood Business Park in Brookshire. The 280,000-square-foot facility, which eventually might employ 500 people, makes uninterruptible power supply units and medium-voltage power drives. The $65 million plant includes a customer training center and tech development labs.

The Twinwood facility is the largest of TMEIC’s 13 factories around the world.

TMEIC’s two other U.S. manufacturing plants are in the Houston area. The company’s North American headquarters is in the Houston Energy Corridor.

Perhaps the biggest recent manufacturing prize for Waller County: Austin-based electric vehicle maker Tesla’s new 1.65 million-square-foot factory at Brookshire’s Empire West Industrial Park. The $200 million plant, expected to employ up to 1,500 people by 2028, produces utility-scale batteries for energy storage.

Other major manufacturers in Waller County include Daikin North America and Igloo.

Pay growth around the region

Here’s a rundown of 2021-26 pay growth in the Houston metro’s eight other counties, according to SmartAsset.

  • Austin County — 42 percent
  • Chambers County — 37 percent
  • Harris County — 33 percent
  • Liberty County — 31 percent
  • Montgomery County — 29 percent
  • Fort Bend County — 28 percent
  • Galveston County — 26 percent
  • Brazoria County — 23 percent

Statewide, Dickens County, outside of Lubbock, saw the most significant growth in wages. According to the study, wages grew by 212 percent over the five years, from $707 per week in 2021 to $2,204 per week in 2026.

Among all Texas counties, Waller was ranked No. 44 on the report.

Small counties in the High Plains and West Texas regions saw the largest percent changes in average weekly wage, according to the report. See the full findings here.

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