Houston investor outlines how rare VCs are in Houston — and how to find them

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If you feel like it's hard to find venture capitalists in Houston, you wouldn't be wrong, according to this Houston investor. Photo via Getty Images

As a venture capitalist and former startup founder living in Houston, I get asked a lot about the best way to find and connect with a venture capitalist in Houston. My usual advice is to start with a list, and reach out to everyone on that list. But no one has a comprehensive list. In fact, VCs are such a quiet bunch that I’ve yet to meet someone who personally knows everyone on this proverbial list.

So, I got together with a couple of VC friends of mine, and we put together our own Houston venture capitalist list.

There are, by our count, 11 active venture capital funds headquartered in Houston of any size and type, and outside of corporate venture capital and angel investors, there are 30 total venture capitalists running funds.

Houston has always been quite thin on the VC fund front. I’ve jokingly introduced myself for a while as “one of the 13 venture capitalists in Houston.”

Let’s put this scale in some brutal perspective. With 7.2 million people in the Greater Houston Metro Area, the odds of finding a partner level active venture capitalist in Houston is about 1 in 240,000, if you take a most expanded definition of venture capitalist that might come down to 1 in 100,000. We’re the fifth largest metropolitan area in the country with a tremendous economic engine; there is a ton of capital in Houston, but it’s residing in things like institutional fixed income and equities, real estate, wealth management, corporate, private equity, family office, energy and infrastructure Basically, mostly everywhere but in venture capital funds for tech startups.

By comparison, there are almost as many Fortune 500 CEOs in Houston — 24, by our count — as venture capitalists and fewer venture capitalists than Fortune 1000 CEOs, of which there are 43. That means running into a VC in the checkout line at HEB is about as rare as running into the CEO of CenterPoint, ConocoPhillips, or Academy. In fact, as there are 115 cities in the Greater Houston area, you are three times more likely to be a mayor in Greater Houston Area than a partner at an investor at a VC firm, and more likely to be a college or university president. While we’re at it, you’re 400 times more likely to be a lawyer, 250 times more likely to be a CPA, and over 650 times more likely to be a medical doctor.

Our 30 venture capitalists in the Greater Houston Area are spread across 20 firms and all major venture sectors and stages. Venture capitalist is defined for this list as a full time managing director or partner-level investment professional actively running a venture capital fund with limited partners, currently investing in new venture capital deals from their fund from seed to growth stage, and residing in the Greater Houston Metro area.

To get to 31 we added in a couple of people running venture set asides for PE funds, and a number who work from Houston for funds with no office here. We excluded CVCs, as the decision making is more corporate than individual and rarely includes the committed fund and carried interest structure that defines venture capital, and excluded professionals at angel networks, accelerators, and seed funds that provide investment, but don’t manage conventional venture capital funds, as well as PE funds that do the occasional venture deal. We might be able to triple the number if we include venture capitalists at any professional level, and add in those professionals at PE and angel and seed funds, and corporate venture capital teams who are actively investing. But we’ll get to those other sources of funding in the next list.

The 11 venture capital funds headquartered in Houston are: Mercury, Energy Transition Ventures (my fund), Montrose Lane (formerly called Cottonwood), Texas Medical Center Venture Fund, Artemis, New Climate Ventures, Fitz Gate Ventures, Curate Capital, Knightsgate Ventures, Amplo Ventures,and First Bight Ventures.

Another half a dozen firms have a partner level venture capital investor here, but are headquartered elsewhere: Energy Innovation Capital, Decarbonization Partners, 1984 Ventures, Altitude Ventures, Ascension Ventures, Moneta Ventures, and MKB & Co. Two others, CSL Ventures and SCF Partners, are local private equity funds with a venture capital partner in Houston and a dedicated allocation from a PE fund.

Culling these for partner or managing director level currently in Houston, in alphabetical order by first name, LinkedIn profile and all.

We may have missed a couple of VCs hiding in plain sight, as venture capital is a pretty dynamic business.

VCs are just rare. And yes, perhaps more rare in Houston than in California. Something less than 1 in 100 VCs in the country live in Houston. Across the US there are somewhere around 1,000 to 2,000 active venture capital firms, and maybe another 1,000 to 2,000 active US based CVCs — so, plus or minus maybe at most 4,000 to 5,000 currently active partner level venture capitalists in the country excluding CVC professionals (active VCs and VC funds are really hard to count).

Perhaps in the most stunning statistic, the 7,386 elected state legislators in the US today outnumber the total number of American venture capitalists. Luckily for startup founders, the venture capitalists are more likely to return your phone call.

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Neal Dikeman is a venture capitalist and seven-time startup co-founder investing out of Energy Transition Ventures. He’s currently hosting the Venture Capital for First Time Founders Series at the Ion, where ETV is headquartered.

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GoExpedi's innovative platform makes it easier for oil and gas companies to find important parts and tools. Getty Images

Houston oil and gas startup closes $25M series B round

Money moves

Following its most recent funding round, a Houston e-commerce startup specializing in the oil and gas industry has big plans for growth.

GoExpedi has closed its $25 million series B funding round that was San Francisco-based Top Tier Capital Partners, with Houston-based Blue Bear Capital, Houston-based CSL Ventures, San Francisco-based Crosslink Capital, New York-based Bowery Capital, and other investors contributing too.

Founded in 2017, the e-commerce, supply chain, and analytics company, which closed its $8 million series A in January, is using the funds to up the ante on its growth plans.

"This round of funding allows us to significantly accelerate our geographic expansion across North America as well as globally, further build out our technology platform, and expand our reach from the land drilling market to the offshore, midstream and downstream markets," says Tim Neal, CEO of GoExpedi, in a news release.

"Since announcing our Series A round of financing in January 2019, we have signed several major customers and are expanding to meet their needs across the globe. This also positions us to take on other significant customers as we build out and deliver our unique capabilities as well as a value proposition that is revolutionizing the industry."

The company has over 200,000 parts and supplies on its e-commerce platform for oil and gas companies to have easy access to along with price transparency and supplier choice.

"It is clear that GoExpedi is onto something very unique," says Garth A.L. Timoll, Sr., managing director at Top Tier Capital Partners, in the release. "In our conversations with GoExpedi's customers, they made clear that the significant cost savings, combined with the platform's capability to provide spend transparency, order accuracy and speed, all customized to their workflow processes are providing major benefits to their businesses."

GoExpedi's clients, according to the release, includes over 20 companies with two if the top five drilling contractors in the United States. The platform operates with Amazon-like transparency, optimizing technology to provide tracking and timely delivery.

Photo via goexpedi.com

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Innovation Labs @ TMC set to launch for early-stage life science startups

moving in

The Texas Medical Center will launch its new Innovation Labs @ TMC in January 2026 to better support life science startups working within the innovation hub.

The new 34,000-square-foot space, located in the TMC Innovation Factory at 2450 Holcombe Blvd., will feature labs and life science offices and will be managed by TMC. The space was previously occupied by Johnson & Johnson's JLABS @TMC, a representative from TMC tells InnovationMap. JLABS will officially vacate the space in January.

TMC shares that the expansion will allow it to "open its doors to a wider range of life science visionaries," including those in the TMC BioBridge program and Innovation Factory residents. It will also allow TMC to better integrate with the Innovation Factory's offerings, such as the TMC Health Tech accelerator, TMC Center for Device Innovation and TMC Venture Fund.

“We have witnessed an incredible demand for life science space, not only at the TMC Innovation Factory, but also on the TMC Helix Park research campus,” William McKeon, president and CEO of the TMC, said in a news release. “Innovation Labs @ TMC enables us to meet this rising demand and continue reshaping how early-stage life science companies grow, connect, and thrive.”

“By bringing together top talent, cutting-edge research, and industry access in one central hub, we can continue to advance Houston’s life science ecosystem," he continued.

The TMC Innovation Factory has hosted 450 early-stage ventures since it launched in 2015. JLABS first opened in the space in 2016 with the goal of helping health care startups commercialize.

13 Houston businesses appear on Time's best midsize companies of 2025

new report

A Houston-based engineering firm KBR tops the list of Texas businesses that appear on Time magazine and Statista’s new ranking of the country’s best midsize companies.

KBR holds down the No. 30 spot, earning a score of 91.53 out of 100. Time and Statista ranked companies based on employee satisfaction, revenue growth, and transparency about sustainability. All 500 companies on the list have annual revenue from $100 million to $10 billion.

According to the Great Place to Work organization, 87 percent of KBR employees rate the company as a great employer.

“At KBR, we do work that matters,” the company says on the Great Place to Work website. “From climate change to space exploration, from energy transition to national security, we are helping solve the great challenges of our time through the high-end, differentiated solutions we provide. In doing so, we’re striving to create a better, safer, more sustainable world.”

KBR recorded revenue of $7.7 billion in 2024, up 11 percent from the previous year.

The other 12 Houston-based companies that landed on the Time/Statista list are:

  • No. 141 Houston-based MRC Global. Score: 85.84
  • No. 168 Houston-based Comfort Systems USA. Score: 84.72
  • No. 175 Houston-based Crown Castle. Score: 84.51
  • No. 176 Houston-based National Oilwell Varco. Score: 84.50
  • No. 234 Houston-based Kirby. Score: 82.48
  • No. 266 Houston-based Nabor Industries. Score: 81.59
  • No. 296 Houston-based Archrock. Score: 80.17
  • No. 327 Houston-based Superior Energy Services. Score: 79.38
  • No. 332 Kingwood-based Insperity. Score: 79.15
  • No. 359 Houston-based CenterPoint Energy. Score: 78.02
  • No. 461 Houston-based Oceaneering. Score: 73.87
  • No. 485 Houston-based Skyward Specialty Insurance. Score: 73.15

Additional Texas companies on the list include:

  • No. 95 Austin-based Natera. Score: 87.26
  • No. 199 Plano-based Tyler Technologies. Score: 86.49
  • No. 139 McKinney-based Globe Life. Score: 85.88
  • No. 140 Dallas-based Trinity Industries. Score: 85.87
  • No. 149 Southlake-based Sabre. Score: 85.58
  • No. 223 Dallas-based Brinker International. Score: 82.87
  • No. 226 Irving-based Darling Ingredients. Score: 82.86
  • No. 256 Dallas-based Copart. Score: 81.78
  • No. 276 Coppell-based Brink’s. Score: 80.90
  • No. 279 Dallas-based Topgolf. Score: 80.79
  • No. 294 Richardson-based Lennox. Score: 80.22
  • No. 308 Dallas-based Primoris Services. Score: 79.96
  • No. 322 Dallas-based Wingstop Restaurants. Score: 79.49
  • No. 335 Fort Worth-based Omnicell. Score: 78.95
  • No. 337 Plano-based Cinemark. Score: 78.91
  • No. 345 Dallas-based Dave & Buster’s. Score: 78.64
  • No. 349 Dallas-based ATI. Score: 78.44
  • No. 385 Frisco-based Addus HomeCare. Score: 76.86
  • No. 414 New Braunfels-based Rush Enterprises. Score: 75.75
  • No. 431 Dallas-based Comerica Bank. Score: 75.20
  • No. 439 Austin-based Q2 Software. Score: 74.85
  • No. 458 San Antonio-based Frost Bank. Score: 73.94
  • No. 475 Fort Worth-based FirstCash. Score: 73.39
  • No. 498 Irving-based Nexstar Broadcasting Group. Score: 72.71

Texas ranks as No. 1 most financially distressed state, says new report

Money Woes

Experiencing financial strife is a nightmare of many Americans, but it appears to be a looming reality for Texans, according to a just-released WalletHub study. It names Texas the No. 1 most "financially distressed" state in America.

To determine the states with the most financially distressed residents, WalletHub compared all 50 states across nine metrics in six major categories, such as average credit scores, the share of people with "accounts in distress" (meaning an account that's in forbearance or has deferred payments), the one-year change in bankruptcy filings from March 2024, and search interest indexes for "debt" and "loans."

Joining Texas among the top five most distressed states are Florida (No. 2), Louisiana (No. 3), Nevada (No. 4), and South Carolina (No. 5).

Texas' new ranking as the most financially distressed state in 2025 may be unexpected, WalletHub says, considering the state has a "bigger GDP than most countries" and still has one of the top 10 best economies in the nation (even though that ranking is also lower than it was in previous years).

Even so, Texas residents are stretching themselves very thin financially this year. Texans had the ninth lowest average credit scores nationwide during the first quarter of 2025, the study found, and Texans had the sixth-highest increase in non-business-related bankruptcy filings over the last year, toppling 22 percent.

"Texas also had the third-highest number of accounts in forbearance or with deferred payments per person, and the seventh-highest share of people with these distressed accounts, at 7.1 percent," the report said.

This is where Texas ranked across the study's six key dimensions, where No. 1 means "most distressed:"

  • No. 5 – "Loans" search interest index rank
  • No. 6 – Change in bankruptcy filings from March 2024 to March 2025 rank
  • No. 7 – Average number of accounts in distress rank
  • No. 8 – People with accounts in distress rank
  • No. 13 – Credit score rank and “debt” search interest index rank
Examining these financial factors on the state level is important for understanding how Americans are faring with economic issues like inflation, unemployment rates, or natural disasters, according to WalletHub analyst Chip Lupo.


"When you combine data about people delaying payments with other metrics like bankruptcy filings and credit score changes, it paints a good picture of the overall economic trends of a state," Lupo said.

On the other side of the spectrum, states like Hawaii (No. 50), Vermont (No. 49), and Alaska (No. 48) are the least financially distressed states in America.

The top 10 states with the most people in financial distress in 2025 are:

  • No. 1 – Texas
  • No. 2 – Florida
  • No. 3 – Louisiana
  • No. 4 – Nevada
  • No. 5 – South Carolina
  • No. 6 – Oklahoma
  • No. 7 – North Carolina
  • No. 8 – Mississippi
  • No. 9 – Kentucky
  • No. 10 – Alabama
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A version of this article originally appeared on CultureMap.com.

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