Post Oak Motor Cars now accepts Dogecoin and Bitcoin as payment. Photo courtesy of Fertitta Entertainment

Post Oak Motor Cars is now accepting dogecoin, a cryptocurrency that recently gained new heights of popularity following support from Tesla founder Elon Musk, as a form of payment. New Bugatti, Bentley, Karma, and Rolls-Royce vehicles are sold at the boutique sales location next to Houston's only five-star hotel, The Post Oak Hotel at Uptown Houston.

This is the second form of cryptocurrency the Houston dealership has accepted. In 2018, Post Oak Motor Cars announced that it would allow customers to pay using bitcoin after integrating cryptocurrency processor Bitpay into its payment system.

Dogecoin was created in 2013 by software engineers from IBM and Adobe. In 2014, the currency briefly passed Bitcoin and all other cryptocurrencies in trading volume. Fast forward to 2020 when a TikTok trend encouraged people to purchase dogecoin in an effort to get the value to $1. By January 2021 Musk, Gene Simmons, Snoop Dogg, and GameStop short squeeze Redditors were all in on the buying binge pushing dogecoin's value to new heights.

Buy Sport, Premium and Luxury cars with Bitcoin from Post Oak Motor Cars.www.youtube.com


In March of this year, Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban announced that the team would allow the public to purchase tickets and products with the digital currency. Within two days, the Mavs had carried out over 20,000 Dogecoin transactions.

Last week, dogecoin's value was up 400 percent week-over-week, hitting an all-time high of $0.46 valuation on April 16. It is currently the fifth-highest valued cryptocurrency and its value is up 6,000 percent year-to-date. According to CNN, the total value of the dogecoins in circulation is nearly $50 billion.

Post Oak Motor Cars is owned by businessman Tilman Fertitta, CEO of Fertitta Entertainment. The billionaire is also the the chairman, CEO, and owner of Landry's, Inc. and owner of the Houston Rockets NBA team. The Rockets online shop currently allows customers to purchase items using Bitpay. Bitpay facilitates transactions for users wishing to complete a purchase using Bitcoin, Dogecoin, and other cryptocurrencies.

Buyers are currently able to buy a Tesla using Bitcoin, but despite Musk's appreciation for the brand faced by a Shiba Inu, dogecoin is not currently accepted as a form of payment.

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This article was originally run on AutomotiveMap.

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Houston startup raises $6M to scale home-based healthcare platform

fresh funding

As healthcare systems race to expand care beyond hospitals and into the home, investors are placing bigger bets on the infrastructure needed to make that shift possible.

This month, Rosarium Health announced it has raised $6 million in seed funding led by Kalos Ventures, with participation from ResilienceVC, Rock Health Capital, Symphonic Capital, Black Tech Nations Ventures and others.

The investment will help the Houston-based startup continue to build its platform, which features a national network of 800-plus clinicians and 3,000-plus contractors to coordinate home accessibility upgrades and modifications for seniors and people living with disabilities.

For founder and CEO Cameron Carter, the company’s mission grew out of firsthand caregiving experiences.

“From my own personal caregiving experiences, I realized that the benefits exist on paper, but not in reality,” Carter said in a news release. “Families are being left to figure out the paperwork and installations all on their own, which shouldn’t be how this works.”

While Medicare Advantage and Medicaid plans have expanded coverage for home-based services and accessibility modifications, the logistics behind delivering those services often remain fragmented.

Rosarium’s platform coordinates the entire process, from clinical assessments and referrals to contractor management, documentation, reimbursement and installation.

“A clinician can document that a home isn’t safe and a plan can approve a benefit, but there’s no one that’s responsible for making sure the work actually gets done,” Carter says. “We built the missing piece.”

The company was founded in 2021 as Rose Health and was a 2023 participant in the Texas Medical Center’s Accelerator for HealthTech program. It has scaled quickly, building a network of more than 800 clinicians and 3,000 contractors across 34 states.

Rosarium is currently in-network for 1.2 million Medicare and Medicaid lives, with projected coverage expected to reach nearly 4 million by the end of the year, according to the release.

“We’re excited to back Cameron because he and the team at Rosarium are building the infrastructure healthcare needs right now to make the home a safe and comfortable place of care,” Kate Ballinger, investor at Kalos Ventures, added in the release.

As part of the recent investment, Ballinger will join Rosarium’s board of directors.

With eyes on the future, Rosarium plans to grow its partnerships with Medicaid and Medicare Advantage plans, including CalViva and Community Health Plan of Imperial Valley, strengthening its presence in California while expanding access to underserved communities.

Additionally, Carter predicts that home-based healthcare will be part of a broader transformation happening across the industry.

“There’s a growing recognition that health outcomes are shaped by what happens in the home,” he said in the release. “The future of healthcare isn’t just treating people after something goes wrong. It’s creating environments that help prevent those problems in the first place.”

Houston business mogul Tilman Fertitta acquires Caesars in $17.6B deal

Money Moves

Houston billionaire Tilman Fertitta may currently be serving as America’s ambassador to Italy, but his company is as busy as ever. Fresh off its move to revive the Houston Comets WNBA franchise, his company, Fertitta Entertainment, has announced a $17.6 billion deal to acquire Caesars Entertainment, Inc.

Speculation about the deal has been circulating since at least March, according to various media reports. The deal combines Fertitta’s well-known Golden Nugget casino brand with all of the properties in the Caesars’ portfolio, including Las Vegas hotels Caesars Palace, Harrah's, Paris Las Vegas, Planet Hollywood, Horseshoe, The LINQ Hotel, Flamingo, and The Cromwell.

Overall, the combined company will include 60 domestic casino resorts and gaming facilities; online gaming including sports betting, iCasino, and Caesar’s online poker platform; retail sports betting at over 200 third-party locations through the William Hill brand; and over 550 Fertitta Entertainment outlets, including more than 450 Landry's full-service restaurants across America. The companies will combine their loyalty programs, Caesars Rewards, Golden Nugget's 24 Karat Select Club, and Landry's Select Club.

The terms will see Caesars’ shareholders receive $31 per share. Fertitta Entertainment will also acquire approximately $11.9 billion of Caesars' outstanding debt.

The transaction will be financed through a combination of equity contributed by Fertitta Entertainment, assumed Caesars' debt, and new committed debt financing arranged by a group consisting of 10 banks. It is subject to approval by Caesars’ shareholders and government regulators.

Fertitta Entertainment is the Houston-based company behind a diverse array of hospitality businesses, including The Golden Nugget, The Post Oak Hotel, River Oaks District, the Kemah Boardwalk, and Houston’s Downtown Aquarium.

It also operates a number of prominent restaurant brands, including Mastro's Restaurants, Del Frisco's Double Eagle Steakhouse, Morton's The Steakhouse, The Palm, McCormick & Schmick's, Landry's Seafood House, The Oceanaire Seafood Room, and Saltgrass Steak House.

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This article first appeared on CultureMap.com.