3 Houston innovators to know this week

who's who

This week's Houston innovators to know includes Chris Buckner of Mainline and Austin Hill and Brad Jenkins of Seed Round Capital. Photos courtesy

This week's Houston innovators to know have all grown or started a company during the COVID-19 pandemic — a bold choice. From an esports software entrepreneur to two serial founders looking to invest in the next generation of Houston tech startups.

Chris Buckner, co-founder and CEO of Mainline

With sports offline, esports startup Mainline has seen an opportunity for growth during the COVID-19 outbreak. Photo courtesy of Mainline

While Chris Buckner has found the isolation aspect of the pandemic challenging, he shares on this week's episode of the Houston Innovators Podcast that it's actually been an extremely exciting time for his esports tournament software startup, Mainline. This year, Mainline is poised to onboard over 100 schools to their system, and, while most of those schools were lined up before the pandemic, the process has been sped up.

"Everyone is looking for how to get sports, or esports, in front of people because everyone is just missing [sports] so much," Buckner says. "We've been very fortunate to work in the industry we do."

On campuses this past spring, basketball was cut short, baseball was canceled, and football's status is currently unknown. Colleges are looking for a way to connect with and engage students, Buckner says. And, Mainline has even been able to attract interest on the professional level. Read more and strea

Austin Hill and Brad Jenkins, co-founders of Seed Round Capital

Brad Jenkins and Austin Hill have announce the launch of a growth and invetment-focused incubator for startups called Seed Round Capital. Photos courtesy of Seed Round Capital

Brad Jenkins and Austin Hill wanted to create a firm that prioritized funding for growing tech startups in Houston, so they teamed up to launch Seed Round Capital, an investment and advisory firm based in Houston and for Houston-based startups. Rather than an accelerator model, the new firm will focus on long-term support for its portfolio companies.

"Our program helps startup founders fund and scale their businesses with management guidance from seasoned entrepreneurs. In addition, founders receive training on proven business methods specially formulated by Seed Round Capital, and access to funding," Hill says in a statement to InnovationMap.

Startups can apply online to be selected to receive mentoring from Jenkins, Hill, and a network of experts involved in — or previously involved in — Entrepreneurs' Organization (EO), a local group of business leaders. Once selected, Seed Round's startups will have access to office space at The Cannon. Read more.

Brad Jenkins and Austin Hill have announce the launch of a growth and invetment-focused incubator for startups called Seed Round Capital. Photos courtesy of Seed Round Capital

Exclusive: 2 serial entrepreneurs launch Houston startup incubator

funding focused

Two Houstonians with years of entrepreneurial and investing experience are starting a firm focused on advising and growing local technology startups.

Brad Jenkins and Austin Hill have announced the launch of Seed Round Capital, an investment and advisory firm based in Houston and for Houston-based startups. Rather than an accelerator model, the new firm will focus on long-term support for its portfolio companies.

"Because we recognize that every new business is unique in its journey, we are able to customize mentoring to suit each startup. Our expertise helps startups reduce risk, secure funding and grow faster than if they were doing this on their own," Jenkins says.

Jenkins has 25 years of software and technology startup experience and has served on the Houston board of EO. A Texas A&M University alumnus, he has a background in marketing and computer science. Hill's specialty includes distribution, contracting, real estate, and consumer-packaged goods. A University of Texas and West Point graduate, he won Rice University's Veterans Business Battle competition and organizes the EO's accelerator program.

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5 Houston universities named best in the world on new U.S. News list

Top of the Class

Five Houston-area universities have been named among the best universities worldwide in U.S. News & World Report's just-released comprehensive list for 2026-2027.

U.S. News' Best Global Universities report ranks more than 2,250 schools based exclusively on their academic research performance and international reputation. Only 275 universities from the U.S. were included in the global ranking, and 21 based in Texas.

Harvard University topped the list for 2026-2027, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Stanford University claimed the coveted No. 2 and No. 3 spots worldwide.

Houston's Baylor College of Medicine topped the list of the best local schools, and it ranked as the 144th best university in the world.

Here's how the rest of Houston's local institutions ranked:

No. 201 – Rice University
No. 324 – University of Texas Health Science Center Houston
No. 390 – University of Houston
No. 599 – University of Texas Medical Branch Galveston

In a statement explaining global university trends, the managing editor for Education at U.S. News, LaMont Jones, Ed.D., said schools in the U.S. have continued to rank "disproportionately high" while major universities from other countries in China and South America are starting to catch up.

"The continuing strength of [American university] reputations and academic research are, for the most part, unmatched," he said. "It's why students all over the world flock here to learn."

Top-ranking Texas universities
The University of Texas at Austin ranked No. 1 statewide and No. 56 worldwide, further cementing the university's reputation as the top choice for students seeking a higher education in Texas.

Earlier in June, UT Austin ranked No. 35 in a separate list of the best universities in the world from the Center for World University Rankings, which compared 2,000 schools globally.

Here's where other Texas universities stand among the top 1,000 in this year's global rankings:

No. 113 – University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas
No. 177 – Texas A&M University, College Station
No. 296 – University of Texas at San Antonio
No. 451 – Baylor University, Waco
No. 503 – University of Texas at Dallas
No. 562 – Texas Tech University, Lubbock
No. 739 – University of North Texas, Denton
No. 975 – University of Texas at Arlington
No. 944 – Southern Methodist University, Dallas

Additionally, six Texas universities ranked outside the top 1,000: University of Texas Rio Grande Valley (No. 1,153); University of Texas El Paso (No. 1,238); Texas State University in San Marcos (No. 1,531); Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center in Lubbock (No. 1,871); Texas Christian University in Fort Worth (No. 1,906); and Sam Houston State University in Huntsville (No. 2,141).

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This article originally appeared on CultureMap.com.

Rice student startup lands $1.85M to launch medical drone network

critical cargo

Students at Rice University have developed a medical cargo drone transport system to help deliver sensitive medical supplies and improve mobile healthcare efforts.

Haast Autonomous is the brainchild of graduating seniors Ege Halac, Jason Chen and Santiago Brent, who got their venture idea off the ground with help from the Liu Idea Lab for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (Lilie) Summer Venture Studio. The founders have developed the prototype at Rice’s Oshman Engineering Design Kitchen (OEDK) with fellow Rice researchers Felix Hasson, Ethan Javedan, Kenna Sanders and Caden Schmidt.

The startup has raised $1.85 million in pre-seed funding, according to Rice. The founders plan to focus on Haast full-time following graduation. They said they aim to launch pilot trials in 2027 and head to market later that year.

“We need better alternatives for a fast, safe and on-demand system of transport for life-critical cargo,” Halac said in a news release from Rice.

The Haast team has developed a custom aircraft with software that manages dispatch, routes, and chain of custody to assist in how materials move between sites in centralized medical systems. Generally, the transportation of medical supplies and materials between facilities and points of care relies on ground shipping or expensive air transport.

Haast Autonomous’ aircraft can take off and land vertically, and is designed around a mission profile of 50 to 62 miles. It can carry a payload of at least 5 pounds, with future versions intended to scale up in size. It also includes a built-in payload bay that regulates temperature, pressure, vibration and tilt to protect sensitive contents such as patient samples, antivenom or poisoning kits and radioligands or other therapies, according to Rice.

At first, the company envisioned the mission to be centered around transplants, but saw the product being best suited for a variety of operations.

“What we realized is that the platform we are building is suited for medicine, but it really underlies a much larger problem of mission-critical transport across industries,” Brent added in the news release. “We are building the fastest, most secure logistics chain for the world’s most sensitive cargo.”

Haast Autonomous was recognized at the 2026 Oshman Engineering Design Showcase and Competition, where it won Best Aerospace or Transportation Technology. It also performed well in the 2026 Napier Rice Launch Challenge.

In the future, Haast Autonomous plans to deploy a fleet of aircraft. The software will be designed to assist hospitals in requesting flights and tracking deliveries in real time.

“The drone is only part of the solution,” Chen also added in the release. “What matters is moving something from point A to point B in a way that fits into how hospitals already operate.”

Houston scientist wins prestigious Pew Scholar award for brain cancer research

standout scholar

Christina Tringides, an assistant professor of materials science and nanoengineering at Rice University, is one of 21 scientists to win a prestigious Pew Biomedical Scholar award.

She is the first faculty member from Rice to win the distinction, which provides $300,000 over four years for advances in biomedicine, according to the university. The awards are granted to researchers who are in the first few years at the assistant professor level.

In Tringides’ case, the funding will support her innovative new method of modeling glioblastoma, a common and extremely aggressive form of brain cancer. Thanks to producing its own blood supply, glioblastoma spreads quickly, weaving tendrils of blighted tissue throughout the brain. Because of this, surgery is difficult and conventional therapies ineffective.

Understanding the way glioblastoma spreads is crucial to the search for a cure. Tringides is using hydrogels that mimic the brain’s extracellular matrix. Using cultures and a microscopic labyrinth, her team can see how the cancer spreads, bonds with neurons and changes cell wall activity. Essentially, Tringides has devised an intelligence test for tumors in hopes of learning how to outsmart them.

“As cancer crawls through the maze, we can look at how it is interacting with the neurons more and more, and measure how electrical activity is changing as a result,” she said in a news release from Rice.

Examining how cancer cells grow can reveal which conditional changes slow them down. Finding ways to alter the structure of brain matter in a way that makes it inhospitable to the cancer could lead to therapies that would impede growth or even reverse it. Using her custom-made ersatz brain maze makes it easier to observe changes than it would be in a patient’s brain.

“Imaging synapses is time-intensive ⎯ it can involve large data files that are hard to visualize, but if we know that the only place where we might have a synapse is this tiny 1-by-4-by-10 micron channel, it makes it much faster and reliable to image them,” Tringides said.

Born in Ames, Iowa, Tringides received her doctorate in biophysics from Harvard before joining Rice in 2024 through a Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas (CPRIT) recruitment award.

Her research was also one of the first four projects to receive research awards through the Rice Brain Institute and TMC Neuro Collaboration Seed Grant Program.

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