Josh Feinberg and Marissa Limsiaco have created a resource for small businesses to find commercial space with their fast-growing startup, Tenavox. Courtesy of Tenavox.

Whether you're looking for a home, a hair stylist, or an electrician, you're probably going online to find it. A Texas startup is trying to make finding retail or office space for small businesses just as easy and accessible.

Traditionally, businesses hire a broker to find applicable commercial real estate property to rent. But Josh Feinberg, a former broker with J. Beard Real Estate Co., says small business owners are more frequently beginning the search process online themselves — to no avail, since there really isn't any resources out there for tenants.

"We're the only tenant-focused platform," Feinberg says. "Commercial real estate isn't like residential where there's 100 websites that can show people homes to buy or apartments to rent."

He's worked over the past few years with his business partner, Marissa Limsiaco, to create Tenavox, an online referring platform where small business owners can search and find properties that fit their budgets, space requirements, and location.

"We're in a time where people don't want to waste time to be matched or linked to things they need, whether it be food coming to your door or a car picking you up to go somewhere," Limsiaco says. "Tenavox almost like a dating platform, where business owners tell us what their needs are in a space, vendors tell us who their ideal client or tenant is, and Tenavox matches them efficiently."

Tenavox currently has over 120 million square feet of rentable, searchable property in Houston and Austin. The company launched in Houston originally, where both the founders are from and where Feinberg is based, before moving into the Austin market, where Limsiaco now lives. It's free for users — just sign in with your email address and begin your search. You get only results that fit your specifications, and Tenavox only gets a kick back when a deal is made. The startup also recently picked up funding from RealCo, an accelerator program funded by Geekdom Fund.

Brokers stand to benefit from Tenavox as well. It's cheap for retail or office brokers to list their properties — $25 a year per property — and brokers only get potential leads that fit the profile of the property. For instance, if a small business owner is looking for a retail space in the Galleria area, they will only be matched with properties in the Galleria area that fit their budget.

"Brokers' sole job is to generate transactions," Feinberg says. "Tenavox is the only targeted marketing solution that is qualified lead generation for commercial brokers."

But that's just the start for the company that launched in March. Now that the infrastructure and data is set in place, Feinberg says they will expand to all the major Texas cities by next year and in over 50 markets nationwide in the next five years. Feinberg says they are targeting metros in private-record states, where traditionally there's more power on the landlord side of transactions.

Tenavox is also expanding its features for users. VoxLink is a search engine option within Tenavox where users can find reputable brokers, lawyers, moving companies, or other service providers.

"We're not just a listing site," Feinberg says. "We're a comprehensive resource."

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German biotech co. to relocate to Houston thanks to $4.75M CPRIT grant

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Armed with a $4.75 million grant from the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas, a German biotech company will relocate to Houston to work on developing a cancer medicine that fights solid tumors.

Eisbach Bio is conducting a clinical trial of its EIS-12656 therapy at Houston’s MD Anderson Cancer Center. In September, the company announced its first patient had undergone EIS-12656 treatment. EIS-12656 works by suppressing cancer-related genome reorganization generated by DNA.

The funding from the cancer institute will support the second phase of the EIS-12656 trial, focusing on homologous recombination deficiency (HRD) tumors.

“HRD occurs when a cell loses its ability to repair double-strand DNA breaks, leading to genomic alterations and instability that can contribute to cancerous tumor growth,” says the institute.

HRD is a biomarker found in most advanced stages of ovarian cancer, according to Medical News Today. DNA constantly undergoes damage and repairs. One of the repair routes is the

homologous recombination repair (HRR) system.

Genetic mutations, specifically those in the BCRA1 and BCRA1 genes, cause an estimated 10 percent of cases of ovarian cancer, says Medical News Today.

The Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas (CPRIT) says the Eisbach Bio funding will bolster the company’s “transformative approach to HRD tumor therapy, positioning Texas as a hub for innovative cancer treatments while expanding clinical options for HRD patients.”

The cancer institute also handed out grants to recruit several researchers to Houston:

  • $2 million to recruit Norihiro Goto from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to MD Anderson.
  • $2 million to recruit Xufeng Chen from New York University to MD Anderson.
  • $2 million to recruit Xiangdong Lv from MD Anderson to the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston.

In addition, the institute awarded:

  • $9,513,569 to Houston-based Marker Therapeutics for a first-phase study to develop T cell-based immunotherapy for treatment of metastatic pancreatic cancer.
  • $2,499,990 to Lewis Foxhall of MD Anderson for a colorectal cancer screening program.
  • $1,499,997 to Abigail Zamorano of the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston for a cervical cancer screening program.
  • $1,497,342 to Jennifer Minnix of MD Anderson for a lung cancer screening program in Northeast Texas.
  • $449,929 to Roger Zoorob of the Baylor College of Medicine for early prevention of lung cancer.

On November 20, the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute granted funding of $89 million to an array of people and organizations involved in cancer prevention and research.

West Coast innovation organization unveils new location in Houston suburb to boost Texas tech ecosystem

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Leading innovation platform Plug and Play announced the opening of its new flagship Houston-area location in Sugar Land, which is its fourth location in Texas.

Plug and Play has accelerated over 2,700 startups globally last year with corporate partners that include Dell Technologies, Daikin, Microsoft, LG Chem, Shell, and Mercedes. The company’s portfolio includes PayPal, Dropbox, LendingClub, and Course Hero, with 8 percent of the portfolio valued at over $100 million.

The deal, which facilitated by the Sugar Land Office of Economic Development and Tourism, will bring a new office for the organization to Sugar Land Town Square with leasing and hiring between December and January. The official launch is slated for the first quarter of 2025, and will feature 15 startups announced on Selection Day.

"By expanding to Sugar Land, we’re creating a space where startups can access resources, build partnerships, and scale rapidly,” VP Growth Strategy at Plug and Play Sherif Saadawi says in a news release. “This location will help fuel Texas' innovation ecosystem, providing entrepreneurs with the tools and networks they need to drive real-world impact and contribute to the state’s technological and economic growth."

Plug and Play plans to hire four full-time equivalent employees and accelerate two startup batches per year. The focus will be on “smart cities,” which include energy, health, transportation, and mobility sectors. One Sugar Land City representative will serve as a board member.

“We are excited to welcome Plug and Play to Sugar Land,” Mayor of Sugar Land Joe Zimmerma adds. “This investment will help us connect with corporate contacts and experts in startups and businesses that would take us many years to reach on our own. It allows us to create a presence, attract investments and jobs to the city, and hopefully become a base of operations for some of these high-growth companies.”

The organization originally entered the Houston market in 2019 and now has locations in Bryan/College Station, Frisco, and Cedar Park in Texas.