Houston-based Topl has raised over $700,000 in its seed round. Getty Images

Kim Raath is pretty proud of her company right about now. Not only is she proud that her startup, Topl, a blockchain network with applications across industries, closed a 20 percent oversubscribed $700,000 seed round, but because she did it in a way that was directly in line with her company's values.

"Every investor that is invested now has focused on both the purpose and the profit, and I'm big on that," Raath, president and co-founder of Topl, says.

Houston-based Topl was created by a few Rice University graduates and doctoral students — Raath, Chief Technology Officer James Aman, and CEO Chris Georgen. The founders wanted to create a way to track impact in various industries, such as carbon footprints in oil and gas or fair wages for farmers in agriculture.

The team has built six blockchain platforms that operate on the Topl network — two are live now, and four will go live later this year. The platforms are focused on four different areas: agriculture (tracking food products from the farm to the shelves), mining (diamonds, for instance), sustainability and impact (tracking a program to see how it succeeds), and carbon credits and renewables within the energy industry.

"It's a validation time for us," Raath tells InnovationMap. "With two platforms already live and collecting transaction fees, we are now at a point where there are actual blockchain transactions happening on our network."

The fact that Topl's technology is already up and running is rare. For this reason, Raath says she has to focus a lot on educating investors, clients, and the rest of the community — something that's really important to her.

"In the blockchain space, there are not a lot of real applications live anywhere," Raath says. "A lot of people are selling ideas that can be built on blockchains, but have not executed yet."

Topl partnered with European NGO Fairfood to create an agricultural blockchain platform that currently is live. Shoppers in the Netherlands can buy a pack of nutmeg and track the product's progress from the farmer who grew and sold the spice. The other already launched platform is focused on sustainability. Topl worked with the Texas Coastal Exchange to create a carbon credit marketplace that can sell carbon offsets generated through the natural carbon sequestration activities of land the organization holds along the Texas coast.

"For us this round is taking these four spaces and validating ourselves, proving out volume, the blockchain's ability, and then, the big thing is, to build out our next version of our blockchain," Raath says.

Raath says the fundraising round was different from what she expected, but she's excited about her investors. Seventy percent of the round was raised by Houstonians, and 40 percent of the investors were women, she says. Topl also had investor interest across industries and backgrounds — from Rice University professors to former banking execs.

The round doesn't technically have a lead investor, but Samantha Lewis, director at the GOOSE Society of Texas, led a syndicate of investors that made up more than 40 percent of Topl's round. Lewis says the round was too early stage for something GOOSE investors would typically contribute to, but she believes in the company so much that she worked nights and weekends to accomplish some of the things a lead investor would do during a raise.

"Since this was their first big round that they raised, I stepped in to help advise them — thinking about the terms, strategic investors, how to pitch to different people, if they needed to oversubscribe, and little details like that," Lewis says. "Through working with them in this way, I was doing diligence with them, and I got really excited about it."

Lewis, who volunteers a lot within the Rice network, met Raath through Georgen and the two hit it off. Lewis was then able to bring in investors from her network to contribute under her syndicate.

This passionate group of value-add investors who are personally committed to the company is what makes this seed round different for Raath. Their commitment is encouraging to her.

"I 100 percent believe that the investors in this round will not allow Topl to fail," Raath says.

With the money, Topl will be able to grow its platforms, provide better product features, and increase marketing efforts. Topl's customers are drawn to the technology because of the business efficiency the blockchain adds to their supply chain, but they are also excited about how having this technology differentiates them from their competition. Raath says she's interested in growing Topl's ability to do joint marketing campaigns with their customers.

This type of promotion leads to a growing clientbase, and Raath says she sees an overwhelming interest from potential clients. Not only is Topl creating a series of platforms in various industries, but the company itself is connecting other companies through their clients.

"Topl is not just a technology," Raath says, "it's an ecosystem."

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Houston femtech co. debuts first holistic wellness suite following rebrand

work perks

Houston-based femtech company Work&, previously Work&Mother, debuted new lactation suites and its first employee wellness space at MetroNational’s Memorial City Plazas this month.

The 1,457-square-foot Work& space features three lactation rooms and five wellness suites, the latter of which are intended to offer employees a private space and time for telehealth appointments, meditation, prayer, and other needs. The hybrid space, designed by Houston-based Inventure, represents Work&'s shift to offer an array of holistic health and wellness solutions to landlords for tenants.

Work& rebranded from Work&Mother earlier this year. The company was previously focused on outfitting commercial buildings with lactation accommodations for working parents, equipped with a hospital-grade pump, milk storage bags, sanitizing wipes, and other supplies. While Work& will still offer these services through its Work&Mother branch, the addition of its Work&Wellbeing arm allows the company to also "address the broader wellness needs of all employees," according to an announcement made on LinkedIn.

"We are thrilled to bring Work&Mother and Work&Wellbeing to The Plazas," Jules Lairson, co-founder and COO of Work&, said in a news release. “This partnership brings every stakeholder together – employees, employers and landlords all benefit from this kind of forward-thinking tenant experience. We are excited to launch our Work&Wellbeing concept with MetroNational to ensure that all employees have their wellness needs met with private, clean, quiet spaces for use during the workday.”

The new space is available to all tenants across Memorial City Plazas, comprised of three office towers totaling 1 million square feet of Class A office space. In addition to the lactation and wellness suites, the space also features custom banquettes, private lounge seating and phone booths.

“As a family-owned and operated company, MetroNational is deeply committed to fostering a workplace that supports both productivity and the well-being of all our tenants,” Anne Marie Ratliff, vice president of asset management for MetroNational, added in the release. “Partnering with Work& reinforces this commitment, enhancing our workplace experience and setting a new standard for tenant amenities.”

Work& has five Houston locations and several others in major metros, including New York, Austin, D.C., Boston, Chicago, San Francisco, and Miami. According to its website, the company will also introduce a Work&Wellbeing suite in New York.

Abbey Donnell spoke with InnovationMap on the Houston Innovators Podcast about why she founded the company and its plans for growth in 2021. Click here to learn more.

9 Houston universities make U.S. News' list of best grad schools 2025

Top of the class

Nine Houston universities have climbed through the ranks in U.S. News & World Report’s recently released report of the best graduate schools nationwide for 2025. Several graduate programs also appeared among the top 10 in a Texas-wide comparison.

U.S. News published its annual national "Best Graduate Schools" rankings on April 8. They look at several programs including business, education, engineering, fine arts, health, and many others.

For the 2025 report, the publication added new Ph.D. social sciences and humanities program rankings in English, history, political science and sociology for the first time since 2021. U.S. News also ranked graduate economics and psychology programs in the social sciences and the humanities for the first time since 2022.

Among the newcomers are Houston Christian University and Texas Southern University.

Here's how the nine local schools ranked, statewide and nationally, and how they compared with last year's national ranking:

University of Houston

  • No. 4 best graduate engineering school in Texas; No. 72 nationally
  • No. 5 best graduate education school in Texas; No. 81 nationally (down from No. 63 last year)
  • No. 5 best law school in Texas; No. 63 nationally (up from No. 68)

The University of Houston Law Center has the No. 9 best health law program in the nation, and ranked No. 15 for its legal writing program. The university's part-time MBA program ranked No. 38 nationally

University of Houston, Clear Lake

  • No. 12 best graduate education school in Texas; No. 166 nationally

The Clear Lake branch of the University of Houston tied for No. 166 for its part-time MBA program.

Houston Christian University

  • No. 21 best graduate education school in Texas; tied for No. 234-258 nationally

University of Texas Health Science Center

  • No. 1 best Doctor of Nursing Practice program in Texas; No. 33 nationally (up from No. 45)
  • No. 2 best graduate nursing program in Texas; No. 41 nationally (down from No. 31)

Prairie View A&M University, Northwest Houston Center

  • No. 5 best graduate nursing program in Texas; No. 104 nationally (up from No. 117)
  • No. 7 best Doctor of Nursing Practice program in Texas; tied for No. 143-158 nationally

Rice University

  • No. 2 best graduate business school in Texas; No. 29 nationally (unchanged)
  • No. 3 best graduate engineering school in Texas; No. 26 nationally

Rice's entrepreneurship program is the 9th best in the country, and its part-time MBA program ranked 13th nationally. The George R. Brown School of Engineering earned nods for its No. 10-ranking biomedical engineering and environmental engineering programs.

University of Texas Medical Branch, Galveston

  • No. 5 best Doctor of Nursing Practice program in Texas; No. 76 nationally

South Texas College of Law Houston

  • No. 7 best law school in Texas; No. 138 nationally

Out of the 11 law programs ranked by U.S. News, the South Texas College of Law performed the best for its trial advocacy (No. 12), dispute resolution law (No. 23), and legal writing (No. 51) programs.

Texas Southern University

  • No. 10 best law school in Texas; tied for No. 178-195 nationally

More specifically, TSU has the 64th best trial advocacy law program in the nation, U.S. News said.

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

VC firm partners with Rice Nexus to open first global office

strategic partnership

Luxembourg-based venture capital and advisory firm MoreThan Capital (MTC) has established its first global office at the new Rice Nexus in Houston’s Ion District as part of a strategic partnership aimed at fostering entrepreneurship and growing Houston as an innovation hub.

MTC has committed to offering its “time, mentorship, industry expertise and global connections” to Rice Nexus. The state-of-the-art Rice Nexus, which opened earlier this year, aims to support and provide resources for ventures that are looking to scale and have "artificial intelligence (AI) as a central pillar of its innovation strategy," according to a statement from Rice.

“The Rice Nexus is a launchpad for world-changing ideas, and this partnership with MoreThan Capital is a key step in realizing that vision,” Sanjoy Paul, executive director of the Rice Nexus, said in a news release. “By combining Rice’s research and entrepreneurial talent with MTC’s global network and mentorship, we are creating an unparalleled engine for innovation that starts in Houston and reaches the world.”

MoreThan Capital has over 100 limited partners, including senior executives and professional investors, based in more than 35 countries.

“Establishing our first global office at the Rice Nexus within the Ion District is a significant milestone for MoreThan Capital,” Guillermo Ruiz, general partner of MoreThan Capital, said in a news release. “We are dedicated to partnering with top-tier academic institutions like Rice University and aligning with organizations that share our core values of trust, engagement and impact.”

The announcement comes just a few weeks after Rice Nexus announced its partnership with Google Public Sector to launch the new Rice AI Venture Accelerator, or RAVA.