Financiers plan to launch a Texas-based stock exchange

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The group raised approximately $120 million of capital to create the Texas Stock Exchange. Photo via Getty Images

A group of financial firms and investors is planning to launch a Texas-based private market stock exchange and offer traders an alternative to the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq.

The group, which includes BlackRock, Citadel Securities and about two dozen investors, raised approximately $120 million of capital to create the Texas Stock Exchange, which would be headquartered in Dallas. They are now seeking registration with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to operate as a national securities exchange later this year.

“Texas and the other states in the southeast quadrant have become economic powerhouses. Combined with the demand we are seeing from investors and corporations for expanded alternatives to trade and list equities, this is an opportune time to build a major, national stock exchange in Texas,” said James Lee, founder and CEO of TXSE Group.

Stock exchanges are private institutions where stocks, bonds and other securities are traded. If the SEC clears TXSE to begin operations, it will be the first stock exchange to launch in the country in recent years.

According to the Wall Street Journal, which first reported on the creation of the new exchange, TXSE promises to be more CEO-friendly than other exchanges and wants to capitalize on discontent over new rules and rising compliance costs at Nasdaq and NYSE.

“If we look at the three states with the largest economy, New York has two stock exchanges. Texas, comparably to California, is growing economically and demographically really fast, and already has a big number of Fortune 500 biggest companies headquarters, so it makes sense Dallas would be an ideal place,” said Steven Pedigo, a professor at the University of Texas at Austin’s LBJ School of Public Affairs and an expert in economic and urban development.

But it could be difficult for a new exchange to take off in the U.S. listings market, where the Nasdaq and NYSE have dominated for decades. The U.S. exchange business consists of about 16 equities exchanges with NYSE accounting for more than 20% of the volume in equities trading in May and Nasdaq over 15%, according to Bloomberg. Nasdaq acquired the Philadelphia Stock Exchange and Boston Stock Exchange, two of the oldest exchanges in the country, in 2007. The NYSE bought the Chicago Stock Exchange in 2018.

“What makes this project interesting is the big companies that supported and financed the new stock exchange, that is why it could be a serious competitor. But it is a ‘to be continued’ story,” Pedigo said.

TXSE founders said they chose Texas as the home for the new national securities exchange because of the state’s rapid economic and population growth. Texas has been a leader in attracting business relocations and expansions in recent years. More than 7,200 firms relocated to Texas between 2010 and 2019, creating nearly 103,000 jobs, according to data from the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas. Businesses that relocated to Texas mostly went to the state’s major metropolitan areas, with Dallas and Houston being the favored destinations.

Major corporations like Tesla and Toyota have chosen the state as their new home base in recent years. Big financial companies like Goldman Sachs have also made big investments lately in Dallas.

Pedigo said this new stock exchange wouldn’t necessarily lead to more jobs being created in the state but would help further bolster the pro-business image Texas has been working on for years.

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This story was originally published by The Texas Tribune and distributed through a partnership with The Associated Press.

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UH student earns prestigious award for cancer vaccine research

up-and-comer

Cole Woody, a biology major in the College of Natural Sciences and Mathematics at the University of Houston, has been awarded a Barry Goldwater Scholarship, becoming the first sophomore in UH history to earn the prestigious prize for research in natural sciences, mathematics and engineering.

Woody was recognized for his research on developing potential cancer vaccines through chimeric RNAs. The work specifically investigates how a vaccine can more aggressively target cancers.

Woody developed the MHCole Pipeline, a bioinformatic tool that predicts peptide-HLA binding affinities with nearly 100 percent improvement in data processing efficiency. The MHCole Pipeline aims to find cancer-specific targets and develop personalized vaccines. Woody is also a junior research associate at the UH Sequencing Core and works in Dr. Steven Hsesheng Lin’s lab at MD Anderson Cancer Center.

“Cole’s work ethic and dedication are unmatched,” Preethi Gunaratne, director of the UH Sequencing Core and professor of Biology & Biochemistry at NSM, said in a news release. “He consistently worked 60 to 70 hours a week, committing himself to learning new techniques and coding the MHCole pipeline.”

Woody plans to earn his MD-PhD and has been accepted into the Harvard/MIT MD-PhD Early Access to Research Training (HEART) program. According to UH, recipients of the Goldwater Scholarship often go on to win various nationally prestigious awards.

"Cole’s ability to independently design and implement such a transformative tool at such an early stage in his career demonstrates his exceptional technical acumen and creative problem-solving skills, which should go a long way towards a promising career in immuno-oncology,” Gunaratne added in the release.

Houston founder on shaping the future of medicine through biotechnology and resilience

Guest Column

Living with chronic disease has shaped my life in profound ways. My journey began in 5th grade when I was diagnosed with Scheuermann’s disease, a degenerative disc condition that kept me sidelined for an entire year. Later, I was diagnosed with hereditary neuropathy with liability to pressure palsies (HNPP), a condition that significantly impacts nerve recovery. These experiences didn’t just challenge me physically, they reshaped my perspective on healthcare — and ultimately set me on my path to entrepreneurship. What started as personal health struggles evolved into a mission to transform patient care through innovative biotechnology.

A defining part of living with these conditions was the diagnostic process. I underwent nerve tests that involved electrical shocks to my hands and arms — without anesthesia — to measure nerve activity. The pain was intense, and each test left me thinking: There has to be a better way. Even in those difficult moments, I found myself thinking about how to improve the tools and processes used in healthcare.

HNPP, in particular, has been a frustrating condition. For most people, sleeping on an arm might cause temporary numbness that disappears in an hour. For me, that same numbness can last six months. Even more debilitating is the loss of strength and fine motor skills. Living with this reality forced me to take an active role in understanding my health and seeking solutions, a mindset that would later shape my approach to leadership.

Growing up in Houston, I was surrounded by innovation. My grandfather, a pioneering urologist, was among the first to introduce kidney dialysis in the city in the 1950s. His dedication to advancing patient care initially inspired me to pursue medicine. Though my path eventually led me to healthcare administration and eventually biotech, his influence instilled in me a lifelong commitment to medicine and making a difference.

Houston’s thriving medical and entrepreneurial ecosystems played a critical role in my journey. The city’s culture of innovation and collaboration provided opportunities to explore solutions to unmet medical needs. When I transitioned from healthcare administration to founding biotech companies, I drew on the same resilience I had developed while managing my own health challenges.

My experience with chronic disease also shaped my leadership philosophy. Rather than accepting diagnoses passively, I took a proactive approach questioning assumptions, collaborating with experts, and seeking new solutions. These same principles now guide decision-making at FibroBiologics, where we are committed to developing groundbreaking therapies that go beyond symptom management to address the root causes of disease.

The resilience I built through my health struggles has been invaluable in navigating business challenges. While my early career in healthcare administration provided industry insights, launching and leading companies required the same determination I had relied on in my personal health journey.

I believe the future of healthcare lies in curative treatments, not just symptom management. Fibroblast cells hold the promise of engaging the body’s own healing processes — the most powerful cure for chronic diseases. Cell therapy represents both a scientific breakthrough and a significant business opportunity, one that has the potential to improve patient outcomes while reducing long-term healthcare costs.

Innovation in medicine isn’t just about technology; it’s about reimagining what’s possible. The future of healthcare is being written today. At FibroBiologics, our mission is driven by more than just financial success. We are focused on making a meaningful impact on patients’ lives, and this purpose-driven approach helps attract talent, engage stakeholders, and differentiate in the marketplace. Aligning business goals with patient needs isn’t just the right thing to do, it’s a powerful model for sustainable growth and lasting innovation in biotech.

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Pete O’Heeron is the CEO and founder of FibroBiologics, a Houston-based regenerative medicine company.


Houston researchers make headway on affordable, sustainable sodium-ion battery

Energy Solutions

A new study by researchers from Rice University’s Department of Materials Science and NanoEngineering, Baylor University and the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research Thiruvananthapuram has introduced a solution that could help develop more affordable and sustainable sodium-ion batteries.

The findings were recently published in the journal Advanced Functional Materials.

The team worked with tiny cone- and disc-shaped carbon materials from oil and gas industry byproducts with a pure graphitic structure. The forms allow for more efficient energy storage with larger sodium and potassium ions, which is a challenge for anodes in battery research. Sodium and potassium are more widely available and cheaper than lithium.

“For years, we’ve known that sodium and potassium are attractive alternatives to lithium,” Pulickel Ajayan, the Benjamin M. and Mary Greenwood Anderson Professor of Engineering at Rice, said in a news release. “But the challenge has always been finding carbon-based anode materials that can store these larger ions efficiently.”

Lithium-ion batteries traditionally rely on graphite as an anode material. However, traditional graphite structures cannot efficiently store sodium or potassium energy, since the atoms are too big and interactions become too complex to slide in and out of graphite’s layers. The cone and disc structures “offer curvature and spacing that welcome sodium and potassium ions without the need for chemical doping (the process of intentionally adding small amounts of specific atoms or molecules to change its properties) or other artificial modifications,” according to the study.

“This is one of the first clear demonstrations of sodium-ion intercalation in pure graphitic materials with such stability,” Atin Pramanik, first author of the study and a postdoctoral associate in Ajayan’s lab, said in the release. “It challenges the belief that pure graphite can’t work with sodium.”

In lab tests, the carbon cones and discs stored about 230 milliamp-hours of charge per gram (mAh/g) by using sodium ions. They still held 151 mAh/g even after 2,000 fast charging cycles. They also worked with potassium-ion batteries.

“We believe this discovery opens up a new design space for battery anodes,” Ajayan added in the release. “Instead of changing the chemistry, we’re changing the shape, and that’s proving to be just as interesting.”

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This story originally appeared on EnergyCapitalHTX.com.

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