Houston space co. adds new adviser, startup named SXSW alternate, and more innovation news

short stories

Here's your latest roundup of innovation news you may have missed. Photo via Getty Images

Houston startup news is in full swing this year, and there might be some headlines you may have missed.

In this roundup of short stories within Houston startups and tech, Venus Aerospace makes an impressive appointment, a sportstech startup is headed to SXSW, and more.

Houston space startup names former NASA administrator to board

Jim Bridenstine, formerly NASA's administrator, has joined Venus Aerospace. Photo courtesy of Venus

A Houston-based company that's creating reusable hypersonic drones and spaceplanes has named its latest adviser. Jim Bridenstine, who served as the 13th administrator for NASA, is Venus Aerospace's latest addition to the team.

"I'm excited to be on the board of advisors for Venus Aerospace," Bridenstine says in a statement. "We have been plowing through the atmosphere at Mach 0.7 for over 70 years. This not only wastes time, but it also costs too much money and places greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere. It's time to disrupt the transportation business and Venus Aerospace has the talent to do it."

"Now we're going above the atmosphere, at hypersonic speeds, to get from one side of the planet to the other in a much cleaner way," he continues.

Founded in California in 2020 and then relocated to the Houston Spaceport, Venus is scaling after raising a $20M series A last spring.

"Jim brings a very unique perspective and capabilities from aviator to congressman to administrator," says Andrew Duggleby, CTO and co-founder, in the release. "The thing that gets me most excited is his ability to jump in, understand the context, and know exactly where he can make an immediate difference."

Houston startup snags spot as SXSW Pitch alternate

This Houston tech company has been named an alternate for the 2023 SXSW pitch. Photo via SXSW

SXSW announced 40 finalists for the 15th annual SXSW Pitch competition taking place March 11 to 12.

"Since its inception, SXSW Pitch has been front row to some of the most ambitious startups from around the world, using creative ideas to change their industry’s future," says SXSW Pitch Event Producer Chris Valentine in a news release. "We are thrilled to play a role in helping shape these early-stage ventures and connect them with the resources they need to thrive. This year’s competition will be a representation of the incredible and innovative work being done around the world."

In addition to the finalists for each category, SXSW names a handful of alternates. This year, Houston-based AiKYNETIX was included in the Artificial Intelligence, Robotics & Voice category.

AiKYNETIX, which was founded in January 2021, uses real-time video analytics technology to provide a new option for runners on treadmills. App users — runners and their coaches — then can measure running form and running performance metrics to improve training.

Houston IT and software services company claims spot on 2023 cloud tech awards

Rajasekhar Gummadapu is the CEO of Techwave. Photo via Techwave

Houston-based Techwave has won a prestigious award. The company claimed the “Best Cloud Migration or Systems Integration Solution” award at the 2022-2023 International Cloud Awards.

The award, which recognizes and honors industry leaders, innovators, and organizational transformation in cloud computing, was announced earlier this month.

"It is an honor to receive the Best Cloud Migration award at the International Cloud Awards," says Raj Gummadapu, co-founder and CEO, in a news release. "This accolade is a reflection of our relentless pursuit of innovation and delivering exceptional solutions."

Techwave is a global IT and engineering services and solutions company revolutionizing digital transformations.

Houston startup secures latest level of compliance

Koda Health has cleared a new level of compliance. Image via kodahealthcare.com

Growing Houston company Koda Health has announced that it achieved SOC 2 Type II compliance, a distinction that indicates a certain standard of securing customer data.

"This compliance demonstrates our commitment to protecting our partners and their data through enterprise-level security protocol and standards," the company announced on LinkedIn.

Koda Health was audited by Prescient Assurance, a leader in security and compliance attestation for B2B, SAAS companies worldwide, according to the company.

This energy tech startup is using tech to change the game within the exploration and production industry. Photo via Getty Images

Houston-based startup makes a splash with cloud technology for E&P in oil sector

big computing

A Houston area environmental and energy tech company offers a new pay-as-you-go SaaS application that uses chemistry, physics, artificial intelligence, and cloud technology to build simulation platforms for major exploration and production companies.

AquaNRG Consulting's new technology has already been used by major independent E&P companies, helping to increase energy production and optimization. With new products like aiRock™, it uses cloud-based technology to simulate the physical and chemical processes in natural and human-made porous media driven by data.

The company, founded in 2017 by Babak Shafei, a Ph.D. in Earth and Environmental Sciences, uses data chemistry-physics in a new scientific methodology that uses data-driven methods including machine learning to complement and enhance theoretical modeling on reactive transport modeling (RTM) principles.

"We have been working on the product while also thinking of new ways to provide services needed in the energy industry for a number of years," says Shafei.

Babak Shafei founded Houston-based AquaNRG. Photo courtesy of AquaNRG

AquaNRG has been awarded three prestigious Small Business Innovation Research grants totaling $1.4 million from the US Department of Energy and National Science Foundation.

Shafei says that his team of in the research lab continues to develop and improve the set of techniques that can optimize the oil and gas industry. The technology offers a number of solutions in the geology area, including geochemistry or petrophysical calculations, or even in the environmental area for biogeochemistry and remediation calculations.

"Our technology is oriented to big data and big computing," says Shafei. "The platform is armed machine learning and artificial intelligence that uses the chemistry-physics methodology while using a cloud-based application that is very popular and essential for the energy sector."

Shafei says that during the ongoing coronavirus crisis, the digitization of the energy industry has only increased, and helped AquaNRG grow their brand. They plan to use this upward push to their advantage, by expanding their business and thinking well into the future.

"Our team of researchers is focused on our product and our offerings," says Shafei. "There's a lot of exciting things on our mind, including different verticals in terms of new hiring and new facilities, we're looking forward to rolling forward with that."

Nicolaus Radford — CEO, CTO, and co-founder of Houston Mechatronics Inc. — joins the Houston Innovators Podcast to discuss his plans to take his cloud robotics company global. Photo courtesy of HMI

Houston robotics company founder plans to take his startup global

houston innovators podcast episode 45

What do space and the ocean have in common? Both have a lot left to explore — while also having environments that aren't so easy for human exploration. A former robotics expert at NASA, Nicolaus Radford founded his cloud robotics company six years ago to create a fleet of robots that can help better complete the tasks that offshore industries need.

Radford remembers his time at NASA and how the organization was looking for opportunities to incorporate more public-private partnerships. Through some meetings and tours, Radford began to see that there was an emerging interest in underwater robotics.

"It became evident that not only was there a huge desire and requirement for what people wanted to do under water, but Houston was likely an epicenter for it," Radford says on the Houston Innovators Podcast.

With this in mind — and an entrepreneurial itch — Radford started Houston Mechatronics Inc. in 2014. He's grown the company through a few venture capital raises and across the energy biz and into new industries. Now, he's looking to take the company global with plans for opening new offices in the United Kingdom and in the Asia Pacific region.

"We're absolutely going to be a global company," Radford says, explaining that new clients in these areas are what's calling for the new offices. "The next 12 months of this company are going to be extremely vibrant and dynamic."

Radford also discusses how the pandemic has affected his business and his challenges raising a round in the episode of the podcast. You can listen to the full interview below — or wherever you stream your podcasts — and subscribe for weekly episodes

In a decade, there will be five times as many satellites as there is now, and we're going to need a better way of keeping track of them. Cognitive Space, lead by Guy de Carufel, has a solution. Courtesy of Guy de Carufel

Houston entrepreneur using cloud-based AI technology in space and satellite applications

Featured innovator

There are around 2,000 satellites up above our heads, but in the next 10 years, that figure will have surpassed 10,000. As the number of satellites goes up, it'll be harder for companies to manage them.

Houston-based Cognitive Space led by Founder and CEO Guy de Carufel recognizes this as an opportunity to engage artificial intelligence and cloud technology. De Carufel spoke with InnovationMap about his company, how it will grow, and the role Houston plays in the evolving space exploration industry.

InnovationMap: How did you come up with the idea for your company and technology?

Guy de Carufel: From my experience working at [JSC], I understand the traditional way of commanding spacecraft and how you interface with that from the ground station point of view. In the industry, it's changing very quickly in terms of new companies that are launching constellations of satellites. We're currently at an inflection point where the satellite industry is expected to grow up to five folds in the next 10 years because of the large companies building up these satellites. There are around 2,000 satellites active right now, and that's expected to grow to over 10,000 in the next 10 years.

With all these satellites, you're going to need to manage these assets. Having an operator look at each satellite is not going to cut it. It's not going to be enough for all these satellites. I've been investing and researching in AI technology and machine learning, and I came up with a different way of approaching the problem, and it's a cloud-based approach to [managing the satellites.]

IM: What got you interested in space initially?

GC: Just the excitement of the new frontier. It's still one of the only places that we have a lot of exploring to do, and that got me into space in general and then aerospace engineering, which I got my master's degree in.
 

IM: What are some of the challenges of introducing a new technology in such a rapidly changing industry?

GC: Traditionally, the aerospace industry is very conservative and doesn't adopt change very quickly. Especially from NASA's point of view and large corporations' point of view, it takes a lot of effort to implement changes — and there's reasons behind that. Space crafts are very expensive to launch and mistakes are very costly. The industry doesn't necessarily like to take too many risks, but that's changing quickly. Now, there are a lot of startups in what's called "new space." You have a lot of companies being funded by venture capital. These startups are willing to take a lot more risks.

IM: How is this growth in satellites going to affect things here on earth?

GC: One of the reasons there's been new interest in space is there are new market forces that are pushing the industry in new directions where you have new uses for space assets. One of them is obviously worldwide connectivity, so internet from space. You have a lot of companies investing billions into that.

The other market force is to have real-time insight into what's going on in the world through imagery. There's a need for tracking transportation and logistics, as well as farming and mining. All of this will have a profound impact on the economy in general.

Industrial IoT, which basically just means everything will be connected, and in order to operate these remote devices, you're going to have to have real-time knowledge of what's going on, and one of the ways to do that is with real-time imagery. It's not something that can be done with today's technology, and we want to be able to position ourselves to be able to enable that market trend.

IM: Has NASA changed with the times? Does it still have the same role in space exploration in "new space"?

GC: The role of NASA has changed over the years. It's changed from initially being a national pride to be the first on the moon and the astronauts were test pilots and the soldier type. When the space station came up and the shuttle program, astronauts became scientists and educators from all sorts of backgrounds. NASA has evolved considerably over the years, and now it is evolving again because of the changes in the industry. NASA will always be relevant, but now it does have to change in how it will play in this new economy. Commercial entities are going to be a large part of exploration, but NASA does have a role to play in setting the roadmap and logistics, as well as sharing the expertise it has from 60 years.

IM: Is Houston a good place for aerospace startups?

There's starting to be a strong startup ecosystem here, but the focus is still medical and oil and gas, much less so aerospace. I do hope that the community realizes that there's a lot of talent here for aerospace. If I were to suggest anything, it would be to have an accelerator program with a focus on space.

IM: Where is Cognitive Space at with its technology and business plan? What are some goals you have for the company?

GC: We're still very early. We're building up our product, and we have a functional prototype. We are in discussion with most major players in the industry and with various government entities.

By next year we will have major contracts, and growing our team to 15 to 20 people. We'll have a commercial product by then and servicing some commercial players. Five years from now, we'll probably be in many different verticals, spawning from what we have now to really expand and apply our systems to as many applications as possible.

IM: Who are Cognitive Space's clients?

GC: Our focus is on earth observation satellite companies — the companies that are developing small satellites with different sensors onboard to take imagery or different spectrum, say hyperspectral or optical. We're focused on that market. What we provide for them is this autonomous tasking solution for their earth observation systems.

We're starting with a niche market but it's growing very quickly. It's expected to grow to $8 billion industry in 5 years. But the technology we develop will be applicable to many different industries.

IM: What's next for Cognitive Space?

GC: We've been focused mostly on developing our prototype and validating the market, but we are looking for investment in a Seed round this year.

------

Portions of this interview have been edited.

Jay Bhatty looked at how pipeline data reached traders and thought of a better way. Getty Images

Growing Houston company makes pipeline data more accessible for natural gas trading

Digital upgrade

In the energy capital of the world, Houston entrepreneur Jay Bhatty has established a rapidly growing technology hub for the natural gas industry.

Bhatty, a veteran of the natural-gas-trading business, founded Houston-based NatGasHub.com in October 2016 to streamline the traditionally complicated processes of moving natural gas from one point to another, and of unearthing data about natural gas pipelines. After only a little over two years in business, NatGasHub.com already is profitable — a rare feat in the startup world.

The NatGasHub.com platform, which runs on cloud-based software, launched in late 2017. The startup participated in the final accelerator class of the Houston Technology Center; the accelerator program shut down in early 2018.

Bhatty hatched the idea for NatGasHub.com while he was vice president of energy trading at JPMorgan Chase & Co.'s investment-banking arm, where for more than eight years he felt frustrated by the sluggish nature of natural-gas-trading activities.

First off, data about natural gas pipelines — such as whether a pipeline has capacity issues that could trigger a spike in prices — has, for years, been scattered across the web. Now, NatGasHub.com aggregates pipeline data from dozens upon dozens of websites.

Secondly, transferring natural gas from Point A to Point B has historically involved the tedious task of manually typing a "nomination" to enable the sale of natural gas. NatGasHub.com automates that job, freeing up workers' time so they can tackle meatier projects.

Bhatty compares the now-streamlined nomination process to buying an airline ticket on Expedia or booking a hotel room on Hotels.com. Like those travel websites, NatGasHub.com also serves as a one-stop shop, only in this case it offers a single dashboard for selling natural gas. Until NatGasHub.com came along, U.S. companies had relied on cadres of employees to enter natural gas nominations by hand into about 100 gas pipeline websites, and to track gas flow around the clock via spreadsheets and phone calls, Bhatty says.

In a nutshell, NatGasHub.com serves as both a data supplier and a logistics provider for the natural gas industry.

"Software automation has led to reduced costs for our clients," Bhatty says.

As of early December 2018, NatGasHub.com's customer roster featured 32 companies. Bhatty declines to identify the startup's clients, but he says they're well-known names in energy circles. Bhatty says energy producers, utilities, banks, and hedge funds are among the types of clients that benefit from NatGasHub.com.

"We're adding customers at a pretty fast rate," Bhatty says. "We're definitely in growth mode right now."

NatGasHub.com also is adding revenue at a pretty fast rate. From October 2017 to October 2018, revenue soared by 300 percent, while profit skyrocketed by 5,500 percent, according to Bhatty.

NatGasHub.com has accomplished all of that without taking one penny from outside investors, Bhatty says.

The energy industry has taken notice of NatGasHub.com's success. In August, Energy CIO Insights named it one of North America's 10 best energy technology startups for 2018.

Today, NatGasHub.com employs 18 people in Houston. Bhatty envisions the workforce growing to 30 to 35 employees by the end of 2019. Planned expansions into other segments of the energy industry, such as crude oil, and into the Canadian market could bump up that projection. Currently, NatGasHub.com operates only in the U.S.

Among the kinds of workers NatGasHub.com will be hiring over the next year are software programmers, database administrators, and sales representatives.

"It's hard to find any kind of qualified people in this economy with the unemployment rate so low," Bhatty says. "But the good part has been that there's a lot of qualified people who want to work in a startup environment — they want to leave the bigger companies and try something different."

Ad Placement 300x100
Ad Placement 300x600

CultureMap Emails are Awesome

Property Showcase

Greentown Labs names Lawson Gow as its new Houston leader

head of hou

Greentown Labs has named Lawson Gow as its Head of Houston.

Gow is the founder of The Cannon, a coworking space with seven locations in the Houston area, with additional partner spaces. He also recently served as managing partner at Houston-based investment and advisory firm Helium Capital. Gow is the son of David Gow, founder of Energy Capital's parent company, Gow Media.

According to Greentown, Gow will "enhance the founder experience, cultivate strategic partnerships, and accelerate climatetech solutions" in his new role.

“I couldn’t be more excited to join Greentown at this critical moment for the energy transition,” Gow said in a news release. “Greentown has a fantastic track record of supporting entrepreneurs in Houston, Boston, and beyond, and I am eager to keep advancing our mission in the energy transition capital of the world.”

Gow has also held analyst, strategy and advising roles since graduating from Rice University.

“We are thrilled to welcome Lawson to our leadership team,” Georgina Campbell Flatter, CEO of Greentown Labs, added in the release. “Lawson has spent his career building community and championing entrepreneurs, and we look forward to him deepening Greentown’s support of climate and energy startups as our Head of Houston.”

Gow is the latest addition to a series of new hires at Greentown Labs following a leadership shakeup.

Flatter was named as the organization's new CEO in February, replacing Kevin Dutt, Greentown’s interim CEO, who replaced Kevin Knobloch after he announced that he would step down in July 2024 after less than a year in the role.

Greentown also named Naheed Malik its new CFO in January.

Timmeko Moore Love was named the first Houston general manager and senior vice president of Greentown Labs. According to LinkedIn, she left the role in January.

---

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

Houston foundation grants $27M to support Texas chemistry research

fresh funding

Houston-based The Welch Foundation has doled out $27 million in its latest round of grants for chemical research, equipment and postdoctoral fellowships.

According to a June announcement, $25.5 million was allocated for the foundation's longstanding research grants, which provide $100,000 per year in funding for three years to full-time, regular tenure or tenure-track faculty members in Texas. The foundation made 85 grants to faculty at 16 Texas institutions for 2025, including:

  • Michael I. Jacobs, assistant professor in the chemistry and biochemistry department at Texas State University, who is investigating the structure and thermodynamics of intrinsically disordered proteins, which could "reveal clues about how life began," according to the foundation.
  • Kendra K. Frederick, assistant professor in the biophysics department at The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, who is studying a protein linked to Parkinson’s disease.
  • Jennifer S. Brodbelt, professor in chemistry at The University of Texas at Austin, who is testing a theory called full replica symmetry breaking (fullRSB) on glass-like materials, which has implications for complex systems in physics, chemistry and biology.

Additional funding will be allocated to the Welch Postdoctoral Fellows of the Life Sciences Research Foundation. The program provides three-year fellowships to recent PhD graduates to support clinical research careers in Texas. Two fellows from Rice University and Baylor University will receive $100,000 annually for three years.

The Welch Foundation also issued $975,000 through its equipment grant program to 13 institutions to help them develop "richer laboratory experience(s)." The universities matched funds of $352,346.

Since 1954, the Welch Foundation has contributed over $1.1 billion for Texas-nurtured advancements in chemistry through research grants, endowed chairs and other chemistry-related ventures. Last year, the foundation granted more than $40.5 million in academic research grants, equipment grants and fellowships.

“Through funding basic chemical research, we are actively investing in the future of humankind,” Adam Kuspa, president of The Welch Foundation, said the news release. “We are proud to support so many talented researchers across Texas and continue to be inspired by the important work they complete every day.”

New Houston biotech co. developing capsules for hard-to-treat tumors

biotech breakthroughs

Houston company Sentinel BioTherapeutics has made promising headway in cancer immunotherapy for patients who don’t respond positively to more traditional treatments. New biotech venture creation studio RBL LLC (pronounced “rebel”) recently debuted the company at the 2025 American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Annual Meeting in Chicago.

Rima Chakrabarti is a neurologist by training. Though she says she’s “passionate about treating the brain,” her greatest fervor currently lies in leading Sentinel as its CEO. Sentinel is RBL’s first clinical venture, and Chakrabarti also serves as cofounder and managing partner of the venture studio.

The team sees an opportunity to use cytokine interleukin-2 (IL-2) capsules to fight many solid tumors for which immunotherapy hasn't been effective in the past. “We plan to develop a pipeline of drugs that way,” Chakrabarti says.

This may all sound brand-new, but Sentinel’s research goes back years to the work of Omid Veiseh, director of the Rice Biotechnology Launch Pad (RBLP). Through another, now-defunct company called Avenge Bio, Veiseh and Paul Wotton — also with RBLP and now RBL’s CEO and chairman of Sentinel — invested close to $45 million in capital toward their promising discovery.

From preclinical data on studies in mice, Avenge was able to manufacture its platform focused on ovarian cancer treatments and test it on 14 human patients. “That's essentially opened the door to understanding the clinical efficacy of this drug as well as it's brought this to the attention of the FDA, such that now we're able to continue that conversation,” says Chakrabarti. She emphasizes the point that Avenge’s demise was not due to the science, but to the company's unsuccessful outsourcing to a Massachusetts management team.

“They hadn't analyzed a lot of the data that we got access to upon the acquisition,” explains Chakrabarti. “When we analyzed the data, we saw this dose-dependent immune activation, very specific upregulation of checkpoints on T cells. We came to understand how effective this agent could be as an immune priming agent in a way that Avenge Bio hadn't been developing this drug.”

Chakrabarti says that Sentinel’s phase II trials are coming soon. They’ll continue their previous work with ovarian cancer, but Chakrabarti says that she also believes that the IL-2 capsules will be effective in the treatment of endometrial cancer. There’s also potential for people with other cancers located in the peritoneal cavity, such as colorectal cancer, gastrointestinal cancer and even primary peritoneal carcinomatosis.

“We're delivering these capsules into the peritoneal cavity and seeing both the safety as well as the immune activation,” Chakrabarti says. “We're seeing that up-regulation of the checkpoint that I mentioned. We're seeing a strong safety signal. This drug was very well-tolerated by patients where IL-2 has always had a challenge in being a well-tolerated drug.”

When phase II will take place is up to the success of Sentinel’s fundraising push. What we do know is that it will be led by Amir Jazaeri at MD Anderson Cancer Center. Part of the goal this summer is also to create an automated cell manufacturing process and prove that Sentinel can store its product long-term.

“This isn’t just another cell therapy,” Chakrabarti says.

"Sentinel's cytokine factory platform is the breakthrough technology that we believe has the potential to define the next era of cancer treatment," adds Wotton.

View All Listings