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

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

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.”

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This week's roundup of Houston innovators includes Youngro Lee of Brassica, Anu Puvvada of KPMG Studio, and Brock Murphy of Parent ProTech. Photos courtesy

3 Houston innovators to know this week

who's who

Editor's note: In this week's roundup of Houston innovators to know, I'm introducing you to three local innovators across industries — from corporate innovation to fintech — recently making headlines in Houston innovation.


Youngro Lee, founder of Brassica

Youngro Lee joins the Houston Innovators Podcast to discuss his latest endeavor on his mission to democratize investing. Photo courtesy

Brassica Technologies, a fintech infrastructure company that's providing a platform for alternative assets, is just the next step in his career in using tech to democratize finance. The idea came from Lee's experience as a startup founder and fintech exec — first at NextSeed and then at Republic, which acquired NextSeed two years ago.

"The reason why I thought this was what I wanted to focus on next was exactly because it was an issue I struggled with as a founder of NextSeed," Lee says on the show. "The backend was always an issue. There's not one single vendor that we felt really understood our business, was doing it efficiently, or enabled us to deliver those services to our end clients."

Lee shares more about the future of Brassica, including the challenges he's facing within regulation and the state of fintech as a whole, on the podcast. He also weighs in on how he's seen the Houston innovation ecosystem grow and develop alongside his own entrepreneurial journey. Read more.

Anu Puvvada, KPMG Studio leader

Anu Puvvada, KPMG Studio leader, shares how her team is advancing software solutions while navigating hype cycles and solving billion-dollar-problems. Photo courtesy of KPMG

In 2021, KPMG, a New York-based global audit, accounting, and advisory service provider, formed a new entity to play in the innovation space. The Houston-based team finds innovative software that benefit KPMG's clients across industries.

In an interview with InnovationMap, Anu Puvvada, leader of KPMG Studio, shares more about the program, its first spin out, and why she's passionate about leading this initiative from Houston.

"When you think about innovation as a whole, it's mired with risk and uncertainty," she says. "You never know if something's going to work or not. And part of what we have to do with any idea that we're building in the studio or anything that our clients are doing around innovation, we have to do as much as we can to mitigate that risk and uncertainty. And that's kind of what KPMG's wheelhouse is." Read more.

Brock Murphy, Parent ProTech co-founder

Brock Murphy launched Parent ProTech last fall. Photo via parentprotech.com

Houston-based Parent ProTech is a one-stop shop for parental education on technology and applications that their kids use.

“Our goal is to make everyone the best digital parent possible,” Brock Murphy, Parent ProTech co-founder, tells InnovationMap. “We understand technology and the role it plays in influencing the next generation. So we help parents when it comes to understanding the platforms, how to use them and how to unlock the parental controls that can be hidden, deeper into these platforms.”

Murphy — with co-founder Drew Wooten and creative director Joshua Adams — launched the platform in September 2022. Since then, Parent ProTech has made its mark through partnerships with schools in Texas. Read more.

Youngro Lee joins the Houston Innovators Podcast to discuss his latest endeavor on his mission to democratize investing. Photo courtesy

Houston entrepreneur furthers mission of democratizing finance with latest venture

HOUSTON INNOVATORS PODCAST EPISODE 186

After seeing through an exit of his first startup NextSeed, lawyer-turned-entrepreneur Youngro Lee took on a leadership role at the acquiring company, Republic. But his fintech innovation wheels kept turning.

"Brassica is, I personally consider, an extension and a national evolution of my original starting point," Lee says on the Houston Innovators Podcast, "which is basically to democratize finance so that everyone can have access to alternative assets as part of their wealth management investments or even for pleasure to just be able to invest in things they believe in."

Brassica Technologies Inc. is a fintech infrastructure company that's providing a platform for alternative assets, Lee explains. While investments in the public markets have platforms already, there are other investment opportunities that are managed in a less optimized way for investors.

Lee says there hasn't been a seamless solution created for the backend of these transactions, things like custody of those assets or transferring and keeping track of them.

"The reason why I thought this was what I wanted to focus on next was exactly because it was an issue I struggled with as a founder of NextSeed," Lee says on the show. "The backend was always an issue. There's not one single vendor that we felt really understood our business, was doing it efficiently, or enabled us to deliver those services to our end clients."

Lee says he has been working on addressing this gap in the market for the past two years under his role at Republic. After holding an executive position at the company as a whole, he currently oversees the Asian market as general partner of Republic Asia.

"We didn't know where this process was going to go. It was a corporate initiative to try to understand what the market needs — because we needed it," Lee says. "We quickly realized that this idea can be really big. Once we had that conclusion, that the problem we're trying to solve and the opportunity that the market presents is significant enough, we knew Brassica deserves to be its own company."

Shortly after that, Lee started reaching out to potential investors and raised an $8 million seed round to take the company out of stealth last month. Houston-based Mercury Fund led the round, with participation from 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.

Lee shares more about the future of Brassica, including the challenges he's facing within regulation and the state of fintech as a whole, on the podcast. He also weighs in on how he's seen the Houston innovation ecosystem grow and develop alongside his own entrepreneurial journey. Listen to the interview below — or wherever you stream your podcasts — and subscribe for weekly episodes.


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NASA signs on latest tenant for new Exploration Park campus, now underway

space hub

Exploration Park, the 240-acre research and commercial institute at NASA's Johnson Space Center, is ready for launch.

Facilities at the property have broken ground, according to a recent episode of NASA's Houston We Have a Podcast, with a completion date targeted for Q4 2026.

The research park has also added Houston-based KBR to its list of tenants. According to a news release from the Greater Houston Partnership, the human spaceflight and aerospace services company will operate a 45,000-square-foot food innovation lab at Exploration Park. KBR will use the facility to focus on customized food systems, packaging and nutrition for the low Earth orbit economy.

“Exploration Park is designed for companies in the space ecosystem, such as KBR, to develop, produce, and deploy innovative new technologies that support space exploration and commerce,” Simon Shewmaker, head of development at ACMI Properties, the developer behind Exploration Park, said in the GHP release. “This project is moving expeditiously, and we’re thrilled to sign such an innovative partner in KBR, reflecting our shared commitment to building the essential infrastructure of tomorrow for the next generation of space innovators and explorers.”

NASA introduced the concept of a collaborative hub for academic, commercial and international partners focused on spaceflight in 2023. It signed leases with the American Center for Manufacturing and Innovation and the Texas A&M University System for the previously unused space at JSC last year.

“For more than 60 years, NASA Johnson has been the hub of human space exploration,” Vanessa Wyche, NASA Johnson Space Center Director, said in a statement at the time. “This Space Systems Campus will be a significant component within our objectives for a robust and durable space economy that will benefit not only the nation’s efforts to explore the Moon, Mars and the asteroids, but all of humanity as the benefits of space exploration research roll home to Earth.”

Texas A&M is developing the $200 million Texas A&M Space Institute, funded by the Texas Space Commission, at the center of the park. The facility broke ground last year and will focus on academic, government and commercial collaboration, as well as workforce training programs. ACMI is developing the facilities at Exploration Park.

Once completed, Exploration Park is expected to feature at least 20 build-to-suit facilities over at least 1.5 million square feet. It will offer research and development space, laboratories, clean rooms, office space and light manufacturing capabilities for the aerospace, robotics, life support systems, advanced manufacturing and artificial intelligence industries.

According to the GHP, Griffin Partners has also been selected to serve as the co-developer of Exploration Park. Gensler is leading the design and Walter P Moore is overseeing civil engineering.

Houston cleantech co. plans first-of-its-kind sustainable aviation fuel facility

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Houston-based Syzygy Plasmonics announced plans to develop what it calls the world's first electrified facility to convert biogas into sustainable aviation fuel (SAF).

The facility, known as NovaSAF 1, will be located in Durazno, Uruguay. It is expected to produce over 350,000 gallons of SAF annually, which would be considered “a breakthrough in cost-effective, scalable clean fuel,” according to the company.

"This is more than just a SAF plant; it's a new model for biogas economics," Trevor Best, CEO of Syzygy Plasmonics, said in a news release. "We're unlocking a global asset class of underutilized biogas sites and turning them into high-value clean fuel hubs without pipelines, costly gas separation, or subsidy dependence.”

The project is backed by long-term feedstock and site agreements with one of Uruguay's largest dairy and agri-energy operations, Estancias del Lago, while the permitting and equipment sourcing are ongoing alongside front-end engineering work led by Kent.

Syzygy says the project will result in a 50 percent higher SAF yield than conventional thermal biogas reforming pathways and will utilize both methane and CO2 naturally found in biogas as feedstocks, eliminating the need for expensive CO2 separation technologies and infrastructure. Additionally, the modular facility will be designed for easy replication in biogas-rich regions.

The new facility is expected to begin commercial operations in Q1 2027 and produce SAF with at least an 80 percent reduction in carbon intensity compared to Jet A fuel. The company says that once fully commercialized the facility will produce SAF at Jet-A fuel cost parity.

“We believe NovaSAF represents one of the few viable pathways to producing SAF at jet parity and successfully decarbonizing air travel,” Best added in the release.

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This article originally ran on EnergyCapital.

Houston company ranks No. 13 worldwide on Forbes Global 2000 list

World's Biggest Companies

More than 60 Texas-based companies appear on Forbes’ 2025 list of the world’s 2,000 biggest publicly traded companies, and nearly half come from Houston.

Among Texas companies whose stock is publicly traded, Spring-based ExxonMobil is the highest ranked at No. 13 globally.

Rounding out Texas’ top five are Houston-based Chevron (No. 30), Dallas-based AT&T (No. 35), Austin-based Oracle (No. 66), and Austin-based Tesla (No. 69).

Ranking first in the world is New York City-based J.P. Morgan Chase.

Forbes compiled this year’s Global 2000 list using data from FactSet Research to analyze the biggest public companies based on four metrics: sales, profit, assets, and market value.

“The annual Forbes Global 2000 list features the companies shaping today’s global markets and moving them worldwide,” said Hank Tucker, a staff writer at Forbes. “This year’s list showcases how despite a complex geopolitical landscape, globalization has continued to fuel decades of economic growth, with the world’s largest companies more than tripling in size across multiple measures in the past 20 years.”

The U.S. topped the list with 612 companies, followed by China with 317 and Japan with 180.

Here are the rest of the Texas-based companies in the Forbes 2000, grouped by the location of their headquarters and followed by their global ranking.

Houston area

  • ConocoPhillips (No. 105)
  • Phillips 66 (No. 276)
  • SLB (No. 296)
  • EOG Resources (No. 297)
  • Occidental Petroleum (No. 302)
  • Waste Management (No. 351)
  • Kinder Morgan (No. 370)
  • Hewlett Packard Enterprise (No. 379)
  • Baker Hughes (No. 403)
  • Cheniere Energy (No. 415)
  • Corebridge Financial (No. 424)
  • Sysco (No. 448)
  • Halliburton (No. 641)
  • Targa Resources (No. 651)
  • NRG Energy (No. 667)
  • Quanta Services (No. 722)
  • CenterPoint Energy (No. 783)
  • Coterra Energy (No. 1,138)
  • Crown Castle International (No. 1,146)
  • Westlake Corp. (No. 1,199)
  • APA Corp. (No. 1,467)
  • Comfort Systems USA (No. 1,629)
  • Group 1 Automotive (No. 1,653)
  • Talen Energy (No. 1,854)
  • Prosperity Bancshares (No. 1,855)
  • NOV (No. 1,980)

Austin area

  • Dell Technologies (No. 183)
  • Flex (No. 887)
  • Digital Realty Trust (No. 1,063)
  • CrowdStrike (No. 1,490)

Dallas-Fort Worth

  • Caterpillar (No. 118)
  • Charles Schwab (No. 124)
  • McKesson (No. 195)
  • D.R. Horton (No. 365)
  • Texas Instruments (No. 374)
  • Vistra Energy (No. 437)
  • CBRE (No. 582)
  • Kimberly-Clark (No. 639)
  • Tenet Healthcare (No. 691)
  • American Airlines (No. 834)
  • Southwest Airlines (No. 844)
  • Atmos Energy (No. 1,025)
  • Builders FirstSource (No. 1,039)
  • Copart (No. 1,062)
  • Fluor (No. 1,153)
  • Jacobs Solutions (1,232)
  • Globe Life (1,285)
  • AECOM (No. 1,371)
  • Lennox International (No. 1,486)
  • HF Sinclair (No. 1,532)
  • Invitation Homes (No. 1,603)
  • Celanese (No. 1,845)
  • Tyler Technologies (No. 1,942)

San Antonio

  • Valero Energy (No. 397)
  • Cullen/Frost Bankers (No. 1,560)

Midland

  • Diamondback Energy (No. 471)
  • Permian Resources (No. 1,762)
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A version of this article originally appeared on CultureMap.com.

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