2 Houston startup founders score cash prizes from Google's diversity-focused funds

big tech funding

Google for Startups Latino Founders Fund and Black Founders Fund announced their latest cohorts and two Houston founders made the cut. Photo via Getty Images

Two Houston startups have received funding from Google in the latest round of the tech giant's Founders Funds grants.

That's Clutch, a creator economy platform that connects emerging brands with its network of digital marketing professionals, was named to the second cohort of Google for Startups Latino Founders Fund. And SmartWiz, an AI enabled IRS approved tax professional software, was named to Google for Startups' sixth Black Founders Fund.

Both startups will receive $150,000 in non-dilutive funds, mentorship, access to programs, and other resources like sales training, investor prep, mental health coaching at no cost.

Madison Long, CEO and Co-founder at That’s Clutch said the funds will help That's Clutch build upon it's go to market strategy and sales strategy, among other benefits.

“The Google for Startups support network has introduced me to so many valuable connections across the country,” Long said in a statement. “Being selected for the Founders Fund is not only an honor but a massive resource as we take Clutch to the next level."

Madison Long of That's Clutch joins the 448 founders who have been supported by Google's funds. Photo courtesy

Bre Johnson — who is based in Houston, while her company SmartWiz is headquartered in Birmingham, Alabama — told Innovation Map that the funds and partnership with Google will help her company scale and improve their AI platform for the tax industry.

"This funding (gives) us the ability to build our product faster, scale our organization and really take over the digital space with improved support on how we market our software using Google SEO," she says. "We will be giving our users a more innovative, fun and revolutionary approach to tax preparation while ensuring every single person who gets their taxes done by someone using our software will have an improved experience every single year."

"Being black founders, and even me being a woman, we don't take this opportunity for granted because we know that it is a blessing," she continues.

Bre Johnson of SmartWiz also received funding from Google. Photo courtesy

That's Clutch and SmartWiz are among the 448 founders Google has backed through its Founder Funds globally since 2020. Five other Texas-based startups received funding this round, according to an announcement.

Other Texas startups include:

Last year, three Houston startups were named to the inaugural Google for Startups Latino Founders Fund: AnswerBite, Boxes and Ease. That same year, ChurchSpace and Enrichly were named to the Google for Startups Black Founders Fund.

Ease, a health care fintech platform founded by Mario Amaro in 2018, was also named to Amazon's WS Impact Accelerator Latino Founders Cohort, part of Amazon's $30 million commitment to supporting underrepresented startup founders, earlier this summer.

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MD Anderson makes AI partnership to advance precision oncology

AI Oncology

Few experts will disagree that data-driven medicine is one of the most certain ways forward for our health. However, actually adopting it comes at a steep curve. But what if using the technology were democratized?

This is the question that SOPHiA GENETICS has been seeking to answer since 2011 with its universal AI platform, SOPHiA DDM. The cloud-native system analyzes and interprets complex health care data across technologies and institutions, allowing hospitals and clinicians to gain clinically actionable insights faster and at scale.

The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center has just announced its official collaboration with SOPHiA GENETICS to accelerate breakthroughs in precision oncology. Together, they are developing a novel sequencing oncology test, as well as creating several programs targeted at the research and development of additional technology.

That technology will allow the hospital to develop new ways to chart the growth and changes of tumors in real time, pick the best clinical trials and medications for patients and make genomic testing more reliable. Shashikant Kulkarni, deputy division head for Molecular Pathology, and Dr. J. Bryan, assistant professor, will lead the collaboration on MD Anderson’s end.

“Cancer research has evolved rapidly, and we have more health data available than ever before. Our collaboration with SOPHiA GENETICS reflects how our lab is evolving and integrating advanced analytics and AI to better interpret complex molecular information,” Dr. Donna Hansel, division head of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at MD Anderson, said in a press release. “This collaboration will expand our ability to translate high-dimensional data into insights that can meaningfully advance research and precision oncology.”

SOPHiA GENETICS is based in Switzerland and France, and has its U.S. offices in Boston.

“This collaboration with MD Anderson amplifies our shared ambition to push the boundaries of what is possible in cancer research,” Dr. Philippe Menu, chief product officer and chief medical officer at SOPHiA GENETICS, added in the release. “With SOPHiA DDM as a unifying analytical layer, we are enabling new discoveries, accelerating breakthroughs in precision oncology and, most importantly, enabling patients around the globe to benefit from these innovations by bringing leading technologies to all geographies quickly and at scale.”

Houston company plans lunar mission to test clean energy resource

lunar power

Houston-based natural resource and lunar development company Black Moon Energy Corporation (BMEC) announced that it is planning a robotic mission to the surface of the moon within the next five years.

The company has engaged NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) and Caltech to carry out the mission’s robotic systems, scientific instrumentation, data acquisition and mission operations. Black Moon will lead mission management, resource-assessment strategy and large-scale operations planning.

The goal of the year-long expedition will be to gather data and perform operations to determine the feasibility of a lunar Helium-3 supply chain. Helium-3 is abundant on the surface of the moon, but extremely rare on Earth. BMEC believes it could be a solution to the world's accelerating energy challenges.

Helium-3 fusion releases 4 million times more energy than the combustion of fossil fuels and four times more energy than traditional nuclear fission in a “clean” manner with no primary radioactive products or environmental issues, according to BMEC. Additionally, the company estimates that there is enough lunar Helium-3 to power humanity for thousands of years.

"By combining Black Moon's expertise in resource development with JPL and Caltech's renowned scientific and engineering capabilities, we are building the knowledge base required to power a new era of clean, abundant, and affordable energy for the entire planet," David Warden, CEO of BMEC, said in a news release.

The company says that information gathered from the planned lunar mission will support potential applications in fusion power generation, national security systems, quantum computing, radiation detection, medical imaging and cryogenic technologies.

Black Moon Energy was founded in 2022 by David Warden, Leroy Chiao, Peter Jones and Dan Warden. Chiao served as a NASA astronaut for 15 years. The other founders have held positions at Rice University, Schlumberger, BP and other major energy space organizations.

Houston co. makes breakthrough in clean carbon fiber manufacturing

Future of Fiber

Houston-based Mars Materials has made a breakthrough in turning stored carbon dioxide into everyday products.

In partnership with the Textile Innovation Engine of North Carolina and North Carolina State University, Mars Materials turned its CO2-derived product into a high-quality raw material for producing carbon fiber, according to a news release. According to the company, the product works "exactly like" the traditional chemical used to create carbon fiber that is derived from oil and coal.

Testing showed the end product met the high standards required for high-performance carbon fiber. Carbon fiber finds its way into aircraft, missile components, drones, racecars, golf clubs, snowboards, bridges, X-ray equipment, prosthetics, wind turbine blades and more.

The successful test “keeps a promise we made to our investors and the industry,” Aaron Fitzgerald, co-founder and CEO of Mars Materials, said in the release. “We proved we can make carbon fiber from the air without losing any quality.”

“Just as we did with our water-soluble polymers, getting it right on the first try allows us to move faster,” Fitzgerald adds. “We can now focus on scaling up production to accelerate bringing manufacturing of this critical material back to the U.S.”

Mars Materials, founded in 2019, converts captured carbon into resources, such as carbon fiber and wastewater treatment chemicals. Investors include Untapped Capital, Prithvi Ventures, Climate Capital Collective, Overlap Holdings, BlackTech Capital, Jonathan Azoff, Nate Salpeter and Brian Andrés Helmick.

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This article originally appeared on our sister site, EnergyCapitalHTX.com.

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