3 Houston innovators to know this week

who's who

This week's roundup of Houston innovators includes John Higgins of illumiPure, Natara Branch of HX, and Daniel Murray of Covenant Underwriters. Photos courtesy

Editor's note: In this week's roundup of Houston innovators to know, I'm introducing you to three local innovators across industries — from insurtech to entrepreneurship — recently making headlines in Houston innovation.

John Higgins, CEO of illumiPure

CleanWhite can quickly and continuously sanitize high-touch areas through its light-based technology. Photo via LinkedIn

Houston-based illumiPure recently announced that it has received a worldwide patent for its LED white light disinfectant earlier this year, known as CleanWhite. The product can quickly and continuously sanitize high-touch areas while a room remains occupied and has shown an elimination of 99 percent of surface bacteria, spores, mold, biofilms, and viruses including SARS-CoV-2 through light-based technology. It's intended to be used in areas like kitchens, restrooms, and locker rooms and is safe for humans and pets.

CleanWhite uses spikes of light wavelengths at 405 and 470 nanometers to kill surface pathogens. Unlike other products on the market, CleanWhite can emit these levels without also emitting a visible purple-violet light while also suppressing blue light wavelengths.

"CleanWhite features technology that makes it the first of its kind, achieving a sought-after solution to produce 405+470 nm blue light as white light," John Higgins, CEO of illumiPure, says in a statement. "As a result of this revolutionary finding, we anticipate the patent’s success across a myriad of industries, including education, healthcare, hospitality, and retail.” Click here to read more.

Natara Branch, CEO of Houston Exponential

Meet Natara Branch — the new CEO of HX. Photo courtesy of Natara Branch

Ever since she accepted the new position as CEO of Houston Exponential, Natara Branch has been on a listening tour of Houston's innovation ecosystem. Branch explains on the Houston Innovators Podcast that she has a passion for the city of Houston, and she's got open ears to anyone in the ecosystem who wants to contribute to the advancement of the city's tech ecosystem.

As she explains, she is getting her fair share of feedback — but she has an ask for anyone who she's met.

"I am challenging people. You're not just going to give me feedback and sit back and watch. You're going to participate," Branch says. "I have not met one person who doesn't want Houston to win — they wouldn't be here if they didn't." Click here to read more and listen to the podcast.

Daniel Murray, co-founder and chief underwriter of Covenant Underwriters

The emerging insurtech industry has a plethora of opportunities for job seekers and more. Photo courtesy

More than 100,000 Houstonians work in insurance, according to Daniel Murray, co-founder and chief underwriter of Covenant Underwriters, a Houston-based insurtech start-up, building e-commerce insurance products for underserved niches. But the 400-year-old industry is hungry for tech talent.

In a guest column for InnovationMap, Murray explains the need for tech and innovation within insurance — and the opportunity the industry has.

"The adage goes that everyone in the insurance industry was either born into it or tricked into it," he writes. "This may have applied to the last generation, but today’s insurance industry offers vast opportunities (including remote) for every discipline, especially for tech job seekers." Click here to read more.

The emerging insurtech industry has a plethora of opportunities for job seekers and more. Photo via Getty Images

Houston expert: The insurance biz is ripe for innovation — here's how to tap into it

guest column

The insurance industry is hungry for tech talent. This 400-year-old industry lays claim to many innovations from financial engineering to weather modeling and was among the first to widely adopt mainframe computing. However, while many sectors took up digital processes in the Internet Age, the $1.4 trillion insurance industry lost out on a generation of innovators to retail, social media, entertainment, and other financial services. Only recently have investors become wise to the massive opportunity of modernizing insurance.

More than 100,000 Houstonians work in insurance, mostly in sales and servicing of policies or claims. Many insurance agencies now employ IT professionals and graphic designers to support online experiences for customers and employees. Larger insurance companies are hiring data analysts, software developers, and cloud engineers to improve risk selection, mitigate losses, and drive efficiency. Such efforts to leverage technology in each function in the insurance value chain are broadly described by the term insurtech (or insuretech; it’s so novel that consensus has not been reached on its spelling).

The largest gathering of insurtech investors, entrepreneurs, and industry incumbents occurs at the InsureTech Connect conference. Last month saw nearly 10,000 insurtech leaders and hopefuls descend on Las Vegas for the 6th annual convention. Sound business models and partnerships with incumbents replaced the easy money and talk of disruption from prior years. Many speakers and panels highlighted the following opportunities for aspiring insurtech professionals:

Embedded Insurance

Insurance has long been sold alongside other products, and omnipresent API ecosystems make the transaction that much more seamless. For a small premium, some insurtechs use embedded products that take the risk out of large purchases like event tickets, rentals, gadgets, and vacations. These companies need savvy designers and creative marketing pros to integrate their products with the right partners.

Parametric Insurance

The fundamental principle of insurance is to make the policyholder whole after a loss, but agreeing on the amount of loss can take years and legal battles. Parametric insurance policies pay losses automatically based on pre-specified trigger events, such as a threshold based on wind speed or hail size. Cutting-edge products provide stability by tying coverage to indexes like oil price or crop yields and require experts in the underlying index to set the correct parameters.

Internet of Things

Theoretically, more information will lead to more accurate prediction of insured loss. Cell phone geolocation, smart homes, and sensors on everything gives insurance companies a mountain of data. Translating all of this into actionable insights will require armies of data scientists. Machine learning algorithms, paired with good data, promise to uncover new ways to anticipate and avoid losses.

Insurance Gigs

Many jobs in the burgeoning gig economy are related to insurance. For all the big data available, insurance companies still need ‘boots on the ground’ when inspecting a new policyholder’s property, assessing damage to a house or car, installing sensors, or responding to catastrophe. They especially need contract workers with drone licenses for inspecting roofs.

Insurtech is not disrupting insurance companies but transforming them to meet modern customer needs They can no longer succeed with just snappy TV ads and countless storefronts. Insurance quotes and claim payments need to be fast and fair. In an industry this large, a great idea that captures 1 percent of market share or improves efficiency by 1 percent can be lucrative. Today’s rate environment has cooled off insurtech valuations but not before 25 US and UK insurtech start-ups rose to billion-dollar unicorn status in the past decade.

The adage goes that everyone in the insurance industry was either born into it or tricked into it. This may have applied to the last generation, but today’s insurance industry offers vast opportunities (including remote) for every discipline, especially for tech job seekers.

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Daniel Murray is co-founder and chief underwriter of Covenant Underwriters, a Houston-based insurtech start-up, building e-commerce insurance products for underserved niches.

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Intuitive Machines lands $600M satellite deal, NASA ‘spacecraft bus’ contract

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Houston-based space infrastructure company Intuitive Machines has scored two astronomical deals.

The deals add to the company’s soaring success. As of June 30, Intuitive Machines had a record-high $1.8 billion backlog of orders, a $1.5 billion increase from the end of last year. The current backlog includes orders for more than 80 spacecraft.

The company, which went public in 2023, expects this year’s revenue to total $900 million to $1 billion. In the first half of 2026, Intuitive Machines generated nearly $393 million in revenue.

Intuitive Machines estimates its total available market is valued at more than $150 billion.

$600 million-plus deal represents ‘important milestone’

On Monday, Intuitive Machines said it picked up a $600 million-plus deal to develop three commercial satellites for an undisclosed customer over the course of about two years.

Intuitive Machines says it will design, manufacture, set up and support several spacecraft “for a critical communications infrastructure mission.”

Steve Altemus, the company’s CEO, says the deal represents “an important milestone for Intuitive Machines and reflects the confidence our customers place in our ability to deliver high-performance spacecraft for a broad range of mission needs.”

Company nails down NASA deal for ‘spacecraft bus’

A day after announcing the $600 million-plus deal, Intuitive Machines said it secured a new contract with NASA.

Intuitive Machines says NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California will use the company’s IM 300 “spacecraft bus” for an EAGLE-VSWIR Earth observation mission. The mission is scheduled to launch in 2028.

Aside from supplying the IM 300 bus, Intuitive Machines will carry out mission support services.

The low-Earth-orbit mission will be equipped with Intuitive Machines’ hyperspectral visible to shortwave infrared (VSWIR) instrument. This technology sees colors and details that aren’t visible to the human eye.

The instrument is “designed to perform surface biology and geology observations from Earth orbit while demonstrating technologies that could support future lunar and Mars exploration missions,” Intuitive Machines says.

Intuitive Machines builds mission-critical spacecraft, systems, and infrastructure for business and government customers. To date, the company has produced more than 300 spacecraft, delivered over 575 pounds of payload to the moon and launched about 100 satellites.

9 Houston-based companies make Fortune Global 500 list in 2026

Worldwide Rankings

Nine Houston companies landed on the 2026 Fortune Global 500 list, which ranks the world's largest corporations by revenue for the 2025 fiscal year.

Houston's showing on the list was led by energy companies, with Spring’s ExxonMobil claiming the top local spot. Here’s what Houston-area companies made the list, and where they ranked:

No. 15 ExxonMobil
No. 36 Chevron
No. 61 Phillip 66
No. 159 Sysco
No. 243 ConocoPhillips
No. 292 Enterprise Products Partners
No. 343 Plains GP Holdings
No. 460 SLB
No. 481 Hewlett Packard Enterprise

After 12 years as No.1, Arkansas-based Walmart was replaced this year by Seattle-based Amazon in the top spot for 2026. Amazon achieved this by bringing in $700 billion in revenue in 2025, representing a 12 percent increase from the previous year.

"Across global business, we see again and again that the leaders who are winning are those who embrace change,” Alyson Shontell, Fortune's editor in chief and chief content officer, said in a news release. "Amazon has topped the Fortune Global 500, knocking Walmart off its pedestal. The company has continually reinvented itself across new businesses and bold bets—including a $200 billion capital commitment, largely to building its capacity for AI and cloud computing, in this year alone."

The U.S. has 141 companies on the 2026 Fortune Global 500 list, which is the most of any country. Companies in America generated $15.5 trillion in aggregate revenues, a 6 percent increase from the previous year.

The number of women CEOs at Fortune Global 500 companies reached a record of 34 top leaders, who represented 6.8 percent of CEOs of companies on the list.

Technology was the standout growth industry on this year’s list, with 38 companies earning revenues that grew 20 percent to about $4 trillion in 2025, with profits climbing 36 percent to $835 billion. The financial sector accounted for the largest share of companies on the list again, with 123 companies in that sector. The energy sector claimed the No. 2 industry spot with 77 companies making the list.

In June, the Fortune 500 list was released, and Texas led the United States with 57 Fortune 500 companies headquartered in the state, generating $2.8 trillion in combined revenue.

Fast-growing Houston real estate startup surges to No. 7 on Inc. 5000

growth report

Houston-based Epique Realty has ridden the AI wave to rank among the Inc. 5000’s 10 fastest-growing private companies.

With three-year revenue growth of 23,210 percent, the AI-powered real estate brokerage appears at No. 7 on this year’s Inc. 5000 list. The 2026 list ranks private companies based on percentage revenue growth from 2022 to 2025.

Epique, founded in 2021, also ranks as the No. 1 fastest-growing company in Houston, No. 1 fastest-growing real estate company in the U.S., and No. 2 fastest-growing company in Texas.

Epique’s annual revenue surpasses $91 million

Between 2022 and 2025, the company’s annual revenue skyrocketed from $391,654 to more than $91.2 million. In 2025, the brokerage closed more than 23,000 deals and surpassed $7 billion in total sales, elevating Epique to the country’s 14th-largest real estate brokerage as measured by volume.

Epique’s network has more than 4,000 agents.

“To debut in the top 10 of the Inc. 5000 is absolute proof that when you relentlessly put agents first, exponential growth takes care of itself,” co-founder and CEO Joshua Miller said in a news release.

“We didn’t achieve this by following the industry playbook; we achieved this by burning it,” Miller added. “By fully funding our agents’ success through free health care, proprietary AI, and world-class leads, we’ve built a company where agents can finally thrive.”

The company’s other co-founders are Chris Miller, chief operating officer and vice president of expansion, and Janice Delci, chief financial officer.

Epique expands business to Canada, Mexico, Australia

The Millers and Delci have guided the company’s rapid expansion.

“Scaling our corporate support team to match [our] hyper-growth while seamlessly expanding across all 50 states and internationally to Canada, Australia, and Mexico takes an incomparable operational infrastructure,” Miller said.

“We have built an enterprise-grade technology ecosystem that allows us to absorb overhead and empower our agents at lightning speed,” he added. “This ranking validates that our disruptive model is working, and it is completely redefining the global industry standard.”

Epique launched its platform in 2023, touting itself as the industry’s first AI-powered brokerage. The startup’s platform provides AI tools for real estate agents to improve their marketing, streamline content creation, and boost engagement with clients and prospects.

Among Epique’s AI tools are:

ChatGPT for generation of property descriptions
AI-assisted creation of blog posts and agents’ bios
Production of Instagram quotes for social media marketing

“When we started Epique, we wanted to build a company that genuinely cared for its agents’ financial and physical well-being,” Delci says. “To see that vision translate into this level of historic record-breaking growth is a beautiful testament to the true power of radical generosity.”

Epique and fellow honorees will be recognized Oct. 14-16 at the 2026 Inc. 5000 Conference & Gala in Dallas.

Six other Houston-area companies land in top 250

Here are the six other Houston-area companies that claimed spots in the top 250 on the Inc. 5000 list. Each company name is followed by its ranking, headquarters city, and three-year growth rate.

No. 27 Empact Technologies, 8,275 percent
No. 60 Action1, 4,512 percent
No 75 Signs By G, 3,684 percent
No. 79 The ’Pause Life, 3,469 percent (Galveston)
No. 110 Turtlebox Audio, 2,576 percent
No. 178 Dahnani Private Equity Group, 1,904 percent (Stafford)

How did companies in Texas’ other major metros fare?

Here’s a breakdown of companies in the Austin, Dallas-Fort Worth, and San Antonio areas that made the top 250 on the Inc. 5000. Again, each company name is followed by its ranking, headquarters city, and three-year growth rate.

Austin (10 companies)

No. 9 Investment Watches, 15,741 percent
No. 72 Razor Metrics, 3,856 percent
No. 91 Autonomize AI, 2,921 percent
No. 102 Choose Your Horizon, 2,719 percent
No. 132 Wander Staffing, 2,296 percent
No. 144 Everyday Dose, 2,179 percent
No. 148 NetRise, 2,118 percent
No. 163 Nutrabound Labs, 1,999 percent (Bastrop)
No. 179 Steadily, 1,890 percent
No. 208 Tiny Health, 1,624 percent

Dallas-Fort Worth (11 companies)

No. 3 Yantran, 258,740 percent (Allen)
No. 12 Paek Management Group, 12,520 percent (Irving)
No. 82 Elite Robotics and Automation, 3,334 percent (Fort Worth)
No. 133 Outamation, 2,291 percent (Southlake)
No. 147 Red Creek Solutions, 2,119 percent (Frisco)
No. 155 JobTread Software, 2,071 percent (Dallas)
No. 164 DAX Eyewear, 1,977 percent (Nevada)
No. 186 Optimized Waste Removal, 1,830 percent (Fort Worth)
No. 204 Freight Flex, 1,642 percent (Denton)
No. 212 Maverick Power, 1,591 percent (McKinney)
No. 229 Innovative Life Sciences, 1,494 percent (McKinney)

San Antonio (one company)

No. 118 Hire With Near, 2,421 percent

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