6 female-founded startups shaping the Houston innovation ecosystem

meet the finalists

Meagan Pitcher, CEO of Houston-based Bairitone Health. Photo courtesy of LinkedIn

Female-founded businesses reached a new milestone last year. According to payroll company Gusto, female founders launched 49 percent of new businesses in 2024, reaching near parity with male-founded businesses for the first time.

And though they still face challenges, with access to VC funding at the top of the list, those women-led companies are driving major impact in the startup and innovation ecosystem.

The fifth-annual Houston Innovation Awards will honor six women-led startups that are shaping Houston innovation in our Female-founded Businesses category, presented by Houston Powder Coaters.

The finalists for the 2025 award, selected by our esteemed panel of judges, range from a company developing natural carbon-free fuel to another launching at-home sleep apnea technology.

Read more about these innovative startups and the visionary female founders behind them below. Then join us at the Houston Innovation Awards on Nov. 13 at Greentown Labs, when the winner will be unveiled at our live awards ceremony.

Tickets are now on sale for this exclusive event celebrating all things Houston innovation.

Anning Corporation

Clean energy company Anning Corporation is working to develop geologic hydrogen, a natural carbon-free fuel, using its proprietary stimulation approaches and advanced exploration modeling. The company said that geologic hydrogen has the potential to be the lowest-cost source of reliable baseload electricity in the U.S.

The company was founded by CEO Sophie Broun in 2024 and is a member of Greentown Labs. Last month, it also announced that it was chosen to participate in Breakthrough Energy’s prestigious Fellows Program. Anning raised a pre-seed round this year and is currently raising a $6 million seed round.

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 system is currently in the research and development phase and is being used in clinical trials and studies.

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. It raised a pre-seed round last year of $435,000.

Brain Haven

Founded at the University of Houston, Brain Haven is developing neuroscience-based, clinically validated protocols that use sensory stimulation through smell and sound to offer a natural and non-invasive way to activate the brain and preserve neuroplasticity. The company aims to deliver an accessible and affordable way for the aging population to preserve memory, delay cognitive decline and improve quality of life.

The company was co-founded by Gail Aflalo, a graduate student in the University of Houston College of Optometry, and Jokūbas Žiburkus, an associate professor in the department of biology and biochemistry at UH. It was selected to participate in the 2024 Innov8 Cohort, where it won the cohort's Startup Pitch Day, and was included in Class 13 of UH RED Labs. Brain Haven was awarded $70,000 in seed funding from UH in June 2025 to support a year-long research initiative in adults aged 50 and above.

FlowCare

Sugar Land-based FlowCare is developing a period health platform that integrates smart dispensers, education and healthcare into one system to make free, high-quality organic period products more accessible.

The company was founded by CEO Tanu Jain, a registered nurse and product management executive, in 2024. It participated in the TiE Women Program and the Houston Community College Business Plan Competition, placing in the top five in both pitch competitions.

March Biosciences

Houston cell therapy company March Biosciences aims to treat unaddressed challenging cancers, with its MB-105, a CD5-targeted CAR-T cell therapy for patients with relapsed or refractory CD5-positive T-cell lymphoma, currently in Phase 2 clinical trials.

The company was founded in 2021 by CEO Sarah Hein, Max Mamonkin and Malcolm Brenner and was born out of the TMC Accelerator for Cancer Therapeutics. The company completed a $29.6 million series A last year and also raised a $4.2 million seed round.

TrialClinIQ

Houston-based TrialClinIQ is an AI-powered clinical trial recruitment platform that helps identify, qualify and enroll eligible patients in appropriate trials faster and more accurately.

The company was founded in 2025 by CEO Jontel Pierce and Janette Obi.

-----

The Houston Innovation Awards program is sponsored by Houston City College Northwest, Houston Powder Coaters, FLIGHT by Yuengling, and more to be announced soon. For sponsorship opportunities, please contact sales@innovationmap.com.

From Your Site Articles
Ad Placement 300x100
Ad Placement 300x600

CultureMap Emails are Awesome

Property Showcase

Houston scientists develop breakthrough AI-driven process to design, decode genetic circuits

biotech breakthrough

Researchers at Rice University have developed an innovative process that uses artificial intelligence to better understand complex genetic circuits.

A study, published in the journal Nature, shows how the new technique, known as “Combining Long- and Short-range Sequencing to Investigate Genetic Complexity,” or CLASSIC, can generate and test millions of DNA designs at the same time, which, according to Rice.

The work was led by Rice’s Caleb Bashor, deputy director for the Rice Synthetic Biology Institute and member of the Ken Kennedy Institute. Bashor has been working with Kshitij Rai and Ronan O’Connell, co-first authors on the study, on the CLASSIC for over four years, according to a news release.

“Our work is the first demonstration that you can use AI for designing these circuits,” Bashor said in the release.

Genetic circuits program cells to perform specific functions. Finding the circuit that matches a desired function or performance "can be like looking for a needle in a haystack," Bashor explained. This work looked to find a solution to this long-standing challenge in synthetic biology.

First, the team developed a library of proof-of-concept genetic circuits. It then pooled the circuits and inserted them into human cells. Next, they used long-read and short-read DNA sequencing to create "a master map" that linked each circuit to how it performed.

The data was then used to train AI and machine learning models to analyze circuits and make accurate predictions for how untested circuits might perform.

“We end up with measurements for a lot of the possible designs but not all of them, and that is where building the (machine learning) model comes in,” O’Connell explained in the release. “We use the data to train a model that can understand this landscape and predict things we were not able to generate data on.”

Ultimately, the researchers believe the circuit characterization and AI-driven understanding can speed up synthetic biology, lead to faster development of biotechnology and potentially support more cell-based therapy breakthroughs by shedding new light on how gene circuits behave, according to Rice.

“We think AI/ML-driven design is the future of synthetic biology,” Bashor added in the release. “As we collect more data using CLASSIC, we can train more complex models to make predictions for how to design even more sophisticated and useful cellular biotechnology.”

The team at Rice also worked with Pankaj Mehta’s group in the department of physics at Boston University and Todd Treangen’s group in Rice’s computer science department. Research was supported by the National Institutes of Health, Office of Naval Research, the Robert J. Kleberg Jr. and Helen C. Kleberg Foundation, the American Heart Association, National Library of Medicine, the National Science Foundation, Rice’s Ken Kennedy Institute and the Rice Institute of Synthetic Biology.

James Collins, a biomedical engineer at MIT who helped establish synthetic biology as a field, added that CLASSIC is a new, defining milestone.

“Twenty-five years ago, those early circuits showed that we could program living cells, but they were built one at a time, each requiring months of tuning,” said Collins, who was one of the inventors of the toggle switch. “Bashor and colleagues have now delivered a transformative leap: CLASSIC brings high-throughput engineering to gene circuit design, allowing exploration of combinatorial spaces that were previously out of reach. Their platform doesn’t just accelerate the design-build-test-learn cycle; it redefines its scale, marking a new era of data-driven synthetic biology.”

Axiom Space wins NASA contract for fifth private mission, lands $350M in financing

ready for takeoff

Editor's note: This story has been updated to include information about Axiom's recent funding.

Axiom Space, a Houston-based space infrastructure company that’s developing the first commercial space station, has forged a deal with NASA to carry out the fifth civilian-staffed mission to the International Space Station.

Axiom Mission 5 is scheduled to launch in January 2027, at the earliest, from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The crew of non-government astronauts is expected to spend up to 14 days docked at the International Space Station (ISS). Various science and research activities will take place during the mission.

The crew for the upcoming mission hasn’t been announced. Previous Axiom missions were commanded by retired NASA astronauts Michael López-Alegría, the company’s chief astronaut, and Peggy Whitson, the company’s vice president of human spaceflight.

“All four previous [Axiom] missions have expanded the global community of space explorers, diversifying scientific investigations in microgravity, and providing significant insight that is benefiting the development of our next-generation space station, Axiom Station,” Jonathan Cirtain, president and CEO of Axiom, said in a news release.

As part of Axiom’s new contract with NASA, Voyager Technologies will provide payload services for Axiom’s fifth mission. Voyager, a defense, national security, and space technology company, recently announced a four-year, $24.5 million contract with NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston to provide mission management services for the ISS.

Axiom also announced today, Feb. 12, that it has secured $350 million in a financing round led by Type One Ventures and Qatar Investment Authority.

The company shared in a news release that the funding will support the continued development of its commercial space station, known as Axiom Station, and the production of its Axiom Extravehicular Mobility Unit (AxEMU) under its NASA spacesuit contract.

NASA awarded Axiom a contract in January 2020 to create Axiom Station. The project is currently underway.

"Axiom Space isn’t just building hardware, it’s building the backbone of humanity’s next era in orbit," Tarek Waked, Founding General Partner at Type One Ventures, said in a news release. "Their rare combination of execution, government trust, and global partnerships positions them as the clear successor-architect for life after the ISS. This is how the United States continues to lead in space.”

Houston edtech company closes oversubscribed $3M seed round

fresh funding

Houston-based edtech company TrueLeap Inc. closed an oversubscribed seed round last month.

The $3.3 million round was led by Joe Swinbank Family Limited Partnership, a venture capital firm based in Houston. Gamper Ventures, another Houston firm, also participated with additional strategic partners.

TrueLeap reports that the funding will support the large-scale rollout of its "edge AI, integrated learning systems and last-mile broadband across underserved communities."

“The last mile is where most digital transformation efforts break down,” Sandip Bordoloi, CEO and president of TrueLeap, said in a news release. “TrueLeap was built to operate where bandwidth is limited, power is unreliable, and institutions need real systems—not pilots. This round allows us to scale infrastructure that actually works on the ground.”

True Leap works to address the digital divide in education through its AI-powered education, workforce systems and digital services that are designed for underserved and low-connectivity communities.

The company has created infrastructure in Africa, India and rural America. Just this week, it announced an agreement with the City of Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of Congo to deploy a digital twin platform for its public education system that will allow provincial leaders to manage enrollment, staffing, infrastructure and performance with live data.

“What sets TrueLeap apart is their infrastructure mindset,” Joe Swinbank, General Partner at Joe Swinbank Family Limited Partnership, added in the news release. “They are building the physical and digital rails that allow entire ecosystems to function. The convergence of edge compute, connectivity, and services makes this a compelling global infrastructure opportunity.”

TrueLeap was founded by Bordoloi and Sunny Zhang and developed out of Born Global Ventures, a Houston venture studio focused on advancing immigrant-founded technology. It closed an oversubscribed pre-seed in 2024.

View All Listings