3 Houston innovators to know this week

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This week's roundup of Houston innovators includes Moji Karimi of Cemvita Factory, Shanna Jin of Rice University, and Trent Crow of Real Simple Energy. Courtesy photos

Editor's note: In the week's roundup of Houston innovators to know, I'm introducing you to three local innovators across industries — data science, consumer tech, and medical device innovation — recently making headlines in Houston innovation.

Moji Karimi, co-founder and CEO of Cemvita Factory

Moji Karimi joins the Houston Innovators Podcast to discuss how his technology is offering energy execs an innovative way to meat their climate change pledge goals. Photo courtesy of Cemvita

A lot of startups are working on technology that makes existing practices more efficient, cheaper, or faster — or all of the above. But Cemvita Factory, founded by siblings Moji and Tara Karimi, is doing something that's never been done before: biomimicking photosynthesis to convert carbon emissions into useful chemicals.

"There weren't biotech companies working with oil and gas companies for this use case that we have now," Moji Karimi says on this week's episode of the Houston Innovators Podcast. "We're defining this new category for application of synthetic biology in heavy industries for decarbonization."

With this uncharted territory comes unique challenges and opportunities. Click here to read more and stream the episode.

Shanna Jin, communications and marketing specialist of the Data to Knowledge Lab at Rice University

Startups and small businesses are accumulating data daily — here's how to use that to your advantage, according to this Houston expert. Photo via rice.edu

Ironically, the power of data management is almost incalculable. With the right practices and processes in place, businesses can make better decisions and grow more strategically. But, it's not something a lot of startups or small businesses look at regularly. That's where the Rice University Data To Knowledge group comes into play.

"Being able to interpret data and making data-driven decisions becomes the key to the success of a business," writes Shanna Jin in a guest column for InnovationMap. "It is not just a privilege for big companies anymore. Small businesses need it more than ever to make sustainable growth in the digital era." Click here to read more.

Trent Crow, founder and president of Real Simple Energy

Trent Crow, founder and president, and the Real Simple Energy team have moved over to Arcardia with the acquisition. Photo courtesy of Real Simple Energy

Earlier this month, a Houston startup exited to a larger tech company. Trent Crow, co-founder and CEO of Real Simply Energy, says all eight of the company's employees have moved over to Arcadia and more workers will be hired soon. The company has maintained a mix of office and remote workers. Arcadia will look for Houston office space later this year, Crow says.

"Expansion plans include doing more of what we're doing now and offering more features for customers," says Crow, who now is Arcadia's general manager of energy services in Texas. Click here to read more.

Startups and small businesses are accumulating data daily — here's how to use that to your advantage. Photo via Getty Images

Houston expert: How to use the power of data and analytics to inform ​small businesses​

Guest column

Starting a business in a digital era brings entrepreneurs unprecedented advantages with technology and tools designed to optimize a business' operation. Whether it is a B2C or B2B, business owners can gather almost any data and metrics to improve their performance.

Being able to interpret data and making data-driven decisions becomes the key to the success of a business. It is not just a privilege for big companies anymore. Small businesses need it more than ever to make sustainable growth in the digital era.

The challenge? There are countless analytic tools and resources available that can generate data, but you need people who can extract insights from the massive amount of data.

Hire a data science team vs. outsourcing

Many companies go to campus recruitment and scout bright data science talent who also identify with their business value. Hiring people with data science and analytic skills is optimal, but for startups that are not ready to hire an in-house team or have a short-term question, outsourcing is a better option.

Data science consulting

Many online resources can help you extract data, but you are probably wondering: where do I begin? Which tool should I use? Which exact metric should I track?

The Rice University's Data Science Consulting Clinic provides free, open to the public assistance to help clients with all of those questions. It can be for various business sectors, such as research and product development, cost predictions, analytic tools, acquisition decisions, and talent management.

Here are some of the data science aspects we specialize in:

Research & Development - Obtain data to inform a decision on what products to develop.
Data analysis of who your customers are, what they are interested in, and what product to develop is crucial for B2C and B2B. A recent example of how Rice's Data Science Consulting Clinic is making a difference is a client needed assistance with market research to help inform a startup on what kind of product they should create next. The client was able to use the data resources suggested by the student and faculty consultants to gauge consumer sentiment and examples of successful products. With the data collected, the client was able to identify the features that drive customers to purchase similar products.

Cost Predictions - A case study for an energy company
Businesses need to make crucial decisions to achieve business intelligence. CEOs and managers need to base their decisions on predictions and analysis. Another client from the Data Science Consulting Clinic was interested in predicting cost and analysis of the factors contributing to the most expense for the coming year. The client's main problem was to transform the data into a statistical model that could predict the cost. With the prediction model suggested by the student consultants, the client was able to reduce the cost by controlling factors that were likely to cause higher costs.

Acquisition Decision Making for Business Professionals
Clients from the Rice MBA program were interested in investigating the causes and effects of private equity (PE) acquisition. Specifically, the clients wanted to analyze the difference in practice habits before and after acquisitions. As a result of the consultation, the clients were able to determine what factors influenced the PE's decision to acquire new equity.

Longer term projects

It would be helpful to have a dedicated data science team who can work over a semester or year long to find the solution.

Higher education has placed a prominent focus on data science programs, especially capstone projects that provide students with real-world experience. As a business owner, you might not even think about working with an esteemed university to help you with data challenges.

The Center for Transforming Data to Knowledge, informally known as the D2K Lab at Rice University, is founded based on the mission to seek real-world data challenges for passionate data science students. Student teams have worked on over 50 sponsored data science projects with partners from a wide variety of businesses, organizations, and community partners.

Advance data science and security

The perk of working with Rice University is that it provides the most advanced data science research tools and an interdisciplinary pool of student and faculty talent who are passionate about data science. Working with Rice University also guarantees a strong data security system and a comprehensive confidentiality agreement.

  • A cloud-based financial company sponsored a series of capstone projects on applying deep learning to reduce documentation errors and increase efficiency for businesses.
  • A fintech company sponsored multiple capstone projects on building statistical models to predict costs.
  • In the tech-med industry, the D2K Lab has partnered with the Medical Informational Corps, and researchers from Texas Children's Hospital and Baylor College of Medicine to build algorithms to predict cardiac events.

The future of data-driven decision making

The digital era has become the norm for all businesses (large or small), and there's no way to avoid the power of transforming data into actionable insights. So start gathering data even before you build out a business and incorporate the culture of data-driven decision making into every sector of your business.

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Shanna Jin is the communications and marketing specialist of the Data to Knowledge Lab at Rice University.

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New UH survey reveals concerns over AI data center growth in Houston

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A new report out of the University of Houston shows that area residents remain wary of the long-term effects of operating data centers.

The recent survey from the University of Houston’s latest SPACE City Panel, conducted by the Center for Public Policy at the Hobby School of Public Affairs, shows that while 85 percent of Houston-area residents use AI, nearly 63 percent oppose the construction of AI data centers within 1 mile of their homes.

Respondents’ concerns centered around data centers’ high energy demand and the area’s power grid reliability. According to the survey, 32 percent of residents who oppose local data center projects would be more likely to support the centers if they relied on renewable energy over fossil fuels.

“Respondents understand that AI can bring economic and educational benefits, but they are also concerned about the physical infrastructure needed to fuel AI, especially data centers,” Soran Mohtadi, post-doctoral fellow at the Hobby School and a researcher on the report, said in a news release. “This physical infrastructure demands more electricity and water, leading to environmental impacts.”

Experts estimate that 6.5 gigawatts of data center capacity will be added to the Texas grid by 2030. And Houston’s data center capacity is predicted to more than double by 2028.

The Electric Reliability Council of Texas also projects electricity demand could reach 218 gigawatts by 2031, which would be more than double the record peak set in August 2023. Data centers are expected to account for 86 gigawatts of that new demand.

Survey respondents also said they are concerned about the state's future water supply, given the large amounts of water that data centers need to stay cool.

In terms of who’s responsible for that issue, 57.6 percent of respondents said they put the onus on Texas lawmakers, while 31.5 percent say tech companies should be responsible.

Additionally, more than 75 percent of respondents believed that data center developers and technology companies—not residents—should bear the cost of infrastructure upgrades to support data centers.

“Every decision legislators make has implications on residents’ everyday lives and local infrastructure now and in the future,” Maria P. Perez Arguelles, lead researcher on the report and research assistant professor at the Hobby School, added in the news release. “This issue is going to become more important in years to come, so this is just the beginning.”

Read the full report here.

Houston-born Cemvita makes breakthrough in sustainable fuel production

clean fuels

Houston-based biotech company Cemvita announced that it recently reached a critical milestone in the development of its FermOil product, which can be used to create Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) and other renewable fuels at industrial scale.

The company shared in a news release that it completed a 75,000-liter industrial fermentation run at Belgium's Bio Base Europe Pilot Plant.

The campaign achieved target technical metrics for the production of FermOil, Cemvita’s renewable natural oil (RNO). FermOil is produced from industrial crude glycerin, an industrial byproduct, as opposed to traditional sugar-based feedstocks used in many bio-oil fermentation processes. It's designed to be a drop-in feedstock for creating SAFs.

Cemvita had previously advanced its FermOil production process through multiple scale-up stages before successfully reaching the 75,000-liter demonstration campaign, according to the company.

“This is not just a fermentation milestone,” Moji Karimi, CEO at Cemvita, said in the release. “It is a blueprint for how existing industrial infrastructure can evolve into circular bioeconomy infrastructure. Every biodiesel plant generating crude glycerin is a potential platform for renewable natural oil production.”

The milestone also supports the deployment of Cemvita’s industrial biomanufacturing platform, FermWorks, which integrates with existing energy and industrial infrastructure to turn waste carbon streams into SAFs and other materials. According to the release, Cemvita plans to move forward with commercial deployment discussions with partners in Brazil, Europe and in the UK. Cemvita already has a partnership with the Brazilian sustainable research institution REMA.

“We are proud to support innovative companies like Cemvita in scaling breakthrough industrial biotechnology solutions,” Hendrik Waegeman, head of business operations at Bio Base Europe Pilot Plant, added in the release. “Successfully operating at the 75,000-liter scale using a feedstock such as crude glycerin highlights both the maturity of the technology and the quality of the scale-up execution achieved by the Cemvita team.”

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

Eli Lilly scoops up Houston biotech startup in $300 million deal

big pharma deal

Pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly has acquired Houston biotech startup CrossBridge Bio, which develops antibody-drug conjugates for cancer, in a deal worth up to $300 million. The deal was celebrated by TMC Venture Fund and the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston last week.

CrossBridge, founded in 2023, is developing ADCs based on research by Kyoji Tsuchikama and Zhiqiang An, both of UT Health Houston. Tsuchikama is an associate professor of medicinal chemistry and a globally recognized ADC pioneer, and An is a professor of molecular science and vice president of drug discovery.

Antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs) are a potent combination of targeted therapy and chemotherapy that kills cancer cells while saving healthy tissue.

Clinical trials for CrossBridge’s primary ADC candidate, CBB-120, are expected to start this year, pending approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

“I’m proud of how well our team has executed and advanced our platform in such a short time since the company’s founding,” Michael Torres, co-founder and CEO of CrossBridge, said in a news release. “By becoming a part of Lilly, a leader in patient-focused therapeutic development, we are well-positioned to further accelerate the clinical potential of this approach.”

Under the Lilly deal, CrossBridge shareholders were expected to receive an upfront payment along with a follow-up payment based on the achievement of certain milestones.

In 2024, CrossBridge closed a $10 million seed round. Among the investors in CrossBridge are the Texas Medical Center Venture Fund, CE-Ventures, Alexandria Venture Investments, Portal Innovations, Linden Lake Labs, and the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas (CPRIT). It was formed in TMC Innovation’s Accelerator for Cancer Therapeutics program."Built within the TMC ecosystem, CrossBridge Bio grew with the support, funding, and resources that helped shape its trajectory. TMC led the company's early financing and watched it evolve from its earliest days to its acquisition by Eli Lilly," William McKeon, president and CEO of the Texas Medical Center, shared in a LinkedIn post. "[This is a] strong reminder that breakthrough science and the right early backing can change what’s possible."
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