Houston tech company receives corporate investment, HX names new board members, and more innovation news

short stories

From new board members at Houston Exponential to startups receiving funding, here are the latest short stories of Houston innovation. Photo by Zview/Getty Images

Houston's innovation ecosystem has been booming with news, and it's likely some might have fallen through the cracks.

For this roundup of short stories within Houston innovation, a startup snags funding from a new corporate venture group, a blockchain startup gets major kudos, CTV's latest investment, and more.

HX names newest board members

HX has five more members of its board. Photo courtesy

Houston Exponential has announced five new members to its governing board. Joining the group is:

  • Stephanie Campbell, managing director of the Houston Angel Network and general partner at The Artemis Fund
  • Martha Castex-Tatum, Houston City Council member
  • Gordon Daugherty, co-founder and president of Capital Factory
  • Emily Keeton, CFO of Mercato and co-founder of Station Houston
  • Roberto Moctezuma, founder and CEO of Fractal River
The board is chaired by Barbara Burger of Chevron and Chevron Technology Ventures. She will continue on as chair until the end of next year, when Blair Garrou of Mercury Fund will take over.

New corporate venture fund makes first investment

Houston-based SmartAC emerged from stealth mode this summer. Photo courtesy of smartac.com

Pinnacle Ventures, a corporate venture fund created by Pinnacle based just outside of Houston in Pasadena, announced the company has invested in Houston-based SmartAC.com, a member-based technology platform that monitors the health of air conditioning systems.

The deal is Pinnacle Ventures' first investment and will help SmartAC.com expand their service offerings to homeowners and top-level HVAC service providers.

"We are excited to have Pinnacle Ventures invest in our company and to have Ryan Sitton, founder and CEO of Pinnacle, join our board," says Josh Teekell, founder and CEO of SmartAC.com, in a news release. "The capital provided by Pinnacle Ventures will help us accelerate the growth required to meet our customer demand, which has scaled quickly since our launch in June.

"Additionally, this capital will help us power a new residential connected service economy for a $30 billion industry while offering our service partners a way to increase loyalty through improved transparency and customer experience," Teekell continues. "We're very much aligned with Pinnacle Ventures' focus on improving reliability through innovation and are confident that this investment will help us support our end users."

Data Gumbo recognized as an innovative blockchain company

CB Insights ranked 50 blockchain companies and one Houston startup made the cut. Photo via CB Insights

CB Insights released its inaugural Blockchain 50 ranking and named Houston-based Data Gumbo among the top blockchain companies in the world.

"The Blockchain 50, which we've created in conjunction with Blockdata, was born out of a desire to reduce that uncertainty and recognize the pioneering companies using the blockchain," says CB Insights CEO Anand Sanwal in the study. "This inaugural class of the Blockchain 50 is tackling a range of use cases across trade finance, capital markets, exchanges and more and are being used by banks, governments and major retailers."

Combined, the 50 companies included in the ranking have raised over $3 billion across 113 deals since 2017.

"Being named to this CB Insights' list is an honor and testament to the power of Data Gumbo's blockchain network GumboNet," says Andrew Bruce, CEO and Founder, of Data Gumbo in a news release. "Our smart contracts enable companies to leverage blockchain technology across the global business infrastructure to capture critical cost savings and value, forging a new foundation for commercial transactions: one based on trust, transparency, speed and visibility."

Currux Vision is deploying its technology in California

The Houston company's technology has been tested in California. Photo via currux.vision

Houston-based Currux Vision, which uses infra-tech artificial intelligence and machine learning solutions for smart city infrastructure, has conducted testing with the city of San Jose, California, and its department of transportation.

According to the tests, Currux Vision's SmartCity ITS can operate at 99 percent accuracy in the city. Moreover, Currux Vision can achieve high resolution results with older legacy digital and analog camera systems that offer lower resolution. Testing included but was not limited to vehicle detection and classification, turning movement counts, pedestrian counts, bicycle discrimination, stopped vehicles, and speeding, according to a press release.

"Increasing urbanization, traffic, mode shift, and increasing focus on safety drive the urgent need for a next-generation traffic management solution like our SmartCity ITS," says Alex Colosivschi, founder and CEO of Currux Vision, in the release. "We believe that efficient mobility and being able to do more with less creates economic opportunities, enables trade, improves quality of life, and facilitates access to markets and services effectively leveraging resources. ... We are happy to have worked with a great partner like San José's Department of Transportation to prove these transportation solutions."

Chevron Technology Ventures invests in software company

Chevron Technology Ventures, led by Barbara Burger, has announced its latest investment. Courtesy of CTV

Houston-based Chevron Technology Ventures has invested in a Denver-based container platform company's latest round. Nubix today announced it has closed $2.7 million in seed financing led by Tuscan Management with strategic investment from Chevron Technology Ventures, in addition to participation from other new investors.

"Businesses worldwide are investing in digital transformation initiatives with IoT-based solutions," says Rachel Taylor, Nubix co-founder and CEO, in a news release. "Our unique innovation in container and services technology enables unprecedented agility and safety when building, deploying and managing applications at the edge.

"We're delivering on digital transformation's requirements for agile compute at the edge, empowering organizations to analyze data in real-time where the data is actually created. This is a massive market opportunity for Nubix and we look forward to working hand-in-hand with our new investors as we drive agility and intelligence to the edge."

Golden Section Ventures invests in Austin startup

GSV has invested in Accelerist's impact-driven software. Image via accelerist.com

Austin-based Accelerist Inc. raised a $1 million investment round led by Houston-based Golden Section Ventures to catalyze the company's growth plans. Accelerist specializes in social impact partnership technology that nonprofits use to prospect, screen, access and measure the efficacy of their relationships with each other.

"We are very impressed with what Brittany (Hill, CEO and founder) and her team have built and are excited to join the journey," says Dougal Cameron, General Partner at GSV. "We are confident that Accelerist can be the standard of excellence for social impact partnership technology. This solution is more needed than ever."

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Rice scientist earns $600K NSF award to study distractions in digital age

fresh funding

Rice University psychologist Kirsten Adam has received a $600,000 National Science Foundation CAREER Award to research how visual distractions like phone notifications, flashing alerts, crowded screens and busy workspaces can negatively impact focus—and how the brain works to try to regain it.

The highly competitive five-year NSF grants are given to career faculty members with the potential to serve as academic models and leaders in research and education. Adam’s work will aim to clarify how the brain refocuses in the age of screens, instant gratification and other lingering distractions. The funding will also be used to train graduate students in advanced cognitive neuroscience methods, expand access to electroencephalography (EEG) and for public data sharing.

“Kirsten is a valued member of the School of Social Sciences, and we are thrilled that she has been awarded the prestigious NSF CAREER,” Rachel Kimbro, dean of social sciences, said in a news release. “Because distractions continue to increase all around us, her research is timely and imperative to understanding their widespread impacts on the human brain.”

In Adam’s lab, participants complete simplified visual search tasks while their brain activity is recorded using EEG, allowing researchers to measure attention shifts in real time. This process then captures the moment attention is drawn from a goal and how much effort it takes to refocus.

According to Rice, Adam’s work will test long-standing theories about distraction. The research is meant to have real-world implications for jobs and aspects of everyday life where attention to detail is key, including medical imaging, airport security screening and even driving.

“At any given moment, there’s far more information in the world than our brains can process,” Adam added in the release. “Attention is what determines what reaches our awareness and what doesn’t.”

Additionally, the research could inform the design of new technologies that would support focus and decision-making, according to Rice.

“We’re not trying to make attention limitless,” Adam added. “We’re trying to understand how it actually works, so we can stop designing environments and expectations that fight against it.”

12 Houston climatetech startups join Greentown Labs' growing incubator

Startup Talk

More than 40 climatetech startups joined the Greentown Labs Houston community in the second half of 2025, 12 of which hail from the Bayou City.

The companies are among a group of nearly 70 total that joined the climatetech incubator, which is co-located in Houston and Boston, in Q3 and Q4.

The new companies that have joined the Houston incubator specialize in a variety of clean energy applications, from green hydrogen-producing water-splitting cycles to drones that service wind turbines.

The local startups that joined Greentown Houston include:

  • Houston-based Wise Energie, which delivers turnkey microgrids that blend vertical-axis wind, solar PV, and battery storage into a single, silent system.
  • The Woodlands-based Resollant, which is developing compact, zero-emissions hydrogen and carbon reactors to provide low-cost, scalable clean hydrogen and high-purity carbon for the energy and manufacturing sectors.
  • Houston-based ClarityCastle, which designs and manufactures modular, soundproof work pods that replace traditional drywall construction with reusable, low-waste alternatives made from recycled materials.
  • Houston-based WattSto Energy, which manufactures vanadium redox flow batteries to deliver long-duration storage for both grid-scale projects and off-grid microgrids.
  • Houston-based AMPeers, which delivers advanced, high-temperature superconductors in the U.S. at a fraction of traditional costs.
  • Houston-based Biosimo, which is developing bio-based platform chemicals, pioneering sustainable chemistry for a healthier planet and economy.
  • Houston-based Ententia, which offers purpose-built, generative AI for industry.
  • Houston-based GeoKiln Energy Innovation, which is developing a new way to produce clean hydrogen by accelerating natural geologic reactions in iron-rich rock formations using precision electrical heating.
  • Houston-based Timbergrove, which builds AI and IoT solutions that connect and optimize assets—boosting visibility, safety, and efficiency.
  • Houston-based dataVediK, which combines energy-domain expertise with advanced machine learning and intelligent automation to empower organizations to achieve operational excellence and accelerate their sustainability goals.
  • Houston-based Resonant Thermal Systems, which uses a resonant energy-transfer (RET) system to extract critical minerals from industrial and natural brines without using membranes or grid electricity.
  • Houston-based Torres Orbital Mining (TOM),which develops autonomous excavation systems for extreme environments on Earth and the moon, enabling safe, data-driven resource recovery and laying the groundwork for sustainable off-world industry.

Other startups from around the world joined the Houston incubator in the same time period, including:

More than 100 startups joined Greentown this year, according to an end-of-year reflection shared by Greentown CEO Georgina Campbell Flatter.

Flatter joined Greentown in the top leadership role in February 2025. She succeeded former CEO and president Kevin Knobloch, who stepped down in July 2024.

"I moved back to the United States in March 2025 after six years overseas—2,000 miles, three children, and one very patient husband later. Over these months, I’ve had the chance to hear from the entrepreneurs, industry leaders, investors, and partners who make this community thrive. What I’ve experienced has left me brimming with urgent optimism for the future we’re building together," she said in the release.

According to Flatter, Greentown alumni raised more than $2 billion this year and created more than 3,000 jobs.

"Greentown startups and ecosystem leaders—from Boston, Houston, and beyond—are showing that we can move further and faster together. That we don’t have to choose between more energy or lower emissions, or between increasing sustainability and boosting profit. I call this the power of 'and,'" Flatter added. "We’re working for energy and climate, innovation and scale, legacy industry and startups, prosperity for people and planet. The 'and' is where possibility expands."

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This article originally appeared on EnergyCaptialHTX.com.

Intuitive Machines forms partnership with Italian companies for lunar exploration services

to the moon

Houston-based space technology, infrastructure and services company Intuitive Machines has forged a partnership with two Italian companies to offer infrastructure, communication and navigation services for exploration of the moon.

Intuitive Machines’ agreement with the two companies, Leonardo and Telespazio, paves the way for collaboration on satellite services for NASA, a customer of Intuitive Machines, and the European Space Agency, a customer of Leonardo and Telespazio. Leonardo, an aerospace, defense and security company, is the majority owner of Telespazio, a provider of satellite technology and services.

“Resilient, secure, and scalable space infrastructure and space data networks are vital to customers who want to push farther on the lunar surface and beyond to Mars,” Steve Altemus, co-founder and CEO of Intuitive Machine, said in a news release.

Massimo Claudio Comparini, managing director of Leonardo’s space division, added that the partnership with Intuitive Machines is a big step toward enabling human and robotic missions from the U.S., Europe and other places “to access a robust communications network and high-precision navigation services while operating in the lunar environment.”

Intuitive Machines recently expanded its Houston Spaceport facilities to ramp up in-house production of satellites. The company’s first satellite will launch with its upcoming IM‑3 lunar mission.

Intuitive Machines says it ultimately wants to establish a “center of space excellence” at Houston Spaceport to support missions to the moon, Mars and the region between Earth and the moon.

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