5 most popular innovation stories in Houston this week

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One of this week's top stories is about a Houston company providing pain-relieving technology on the go. The Squid Team/Twitter

Editor's note: InnovationMap is starting strong — right out of the gate of 2019. From a restaurant-focused app to B2B companies making a splash in their industry's, the first trending stories post of the year has some great reads.

3 Houston innovators to know this week

These three entrepreneurs have a lot up their sleeves for 2019. Courtesy images

InnovationMap has three inspiring entrepreneurs to lead you into 2019. All three are behind Houston startups that are planning for big growth in the upcoming year. So, read their stories and get familiar with their names and faces — they aren't going anywhere. Read the full story here.

Restaurant-driven app focuses on Houston's food scene

Crityk's main goal is to be a marketing asset to restaurants. Getty Images

One night, Sumit Sikka was on a quest to find the best Moscow Mule in Santa Monica. He couldn't find anything helpful online, and when he finally did get a good recommendation, he was already done for the night.

It was through this experience that Sikka knew he wanted to make a restaurant finder app, but he wanted to do something different from Yelp or Google Reviews. On those platforms, a restaurant can get crushed by a bad review that provides false information. So, when he started getting the ball rolling on Crityk, he realized he needed to give the restaurants a voice. Read the full story here.

Houston company creates portable device that eases pain without the use of drugs

For years, Squid Compression has helped ease the pain of patients in doctor's offices. Now, anyone can get the treatment on the go. Photo via squidgo.com

Many of the estimated 50 million Americans who suffer from chronic pain turn to drugs — including heavily abused opioids — to relieve their symptoms. Houston-based startup Portable Therapeutix LLC's drug-free solution to pain management seeks to put a dent in the market for prescription painkillers.

In 2018, Houston-based Portable Therapeutix introduced Squid Go, a portable device that's designed to ease the pain and swelling of sore joints and muscles. It's a follow-up to the company's Squid Compression, a pain management device launched in 2013 for patients at rehabilitation centers, hospitals, doctor's offices, and the like. Read the full story here.

Houston software startup pivots to provide digital networking solutions

What started as a way to protect your company from a sketchy business partner has turned into a digital networking tool. Getty Images

Several years ago, David Grimes had a business partner who played dirty. It wasn't until the trial that followed the business wrongdoing that Grimes discovered the man had a history of cheating companies out of money. Grimes envisioned a software service that used public information to research potential investors or associates before signing on the dotted line of a partnership.

"I wanted to find a tool that would alleviate that pain and that risk of doing business," Grimes says. "I couldn't find that tool." Read the full story here.

Oil and gas startup exec positions Houston company for more growth in 2019

Christopher Robart leads Ambyint — a technology company creating the Nest thermostat for oil rigs — with his twin brother, Alex. Courtesy of Ambyint

Most of Christopher Robart's 10-year career in oil and gas has been deliberate and calculated — researching the right startup to be involved in or finding the right buyer for a company he invested in. However, his actual start in the industry wasn't so intentional.

"I sort of fell into oil and gas after I got of college back in 2003," says Robart, who is the president of Ambyint USA. "Before that, I was involved in a few startup things — some digital and some not. I was always sort of an entrepreneur." Read the full story here.


These three entrepreneurs have a lot up their sleeves for 2019. Courtesy images

3 Houston innovators to know this week

Who's Who

This week starts in one year and ends in the next, and InnovationMap has three inspiring entrepreneurs to lead you into 2019. All three are behind Houston startups that are planning for big growth in the upcoming year. So, read their stories and get familiar with their names and faces — they aren't going anywhere.

Ben Johnson, founder and CEO of Apartment Butler

Ben Johnson's business idea turned into a growing company making the lives of apartment dwellers easier. Courtesy of Apartment Butler

Ben Johnson has his own master plan. He'd work as an oil and gas banker for a bit, establish himself, get his MBA, and then, when he was in his 40s, would start his own company. He wasn't wrong about his future as an entrepreneur, but he was off by the timeline.

Johnson started Apartment Butler a few years ago when he saw how apartment communities had the potential to provide streamlined access to resident elected services — such as cleaning or pet care. At the same time, apartment communities across the U.S. were looking to beef up their amenities. Now, Apartment Butler is expanding to its third and fourth markets early next year and is looking to provide more services to its users.

Scott Parazynski, CEO of Fluidity Technologies

Scott Parazynski is a accomplished astronaut and surgeon, but he has a new career focus on drone operation. Courtesy of Fluidity

There are Renaissance men and then there's Scott Parazynski. He's has spent 57 days in space, trained as a trauma surgeon, and climbed Mount Everest as a team physician for the Discovery Channel. His latest conquest is designing a drone controller based on movement in space. The device, called the FT Aviator, allows for one-handed piloting of drones and has the potential to affect the way unmanned vehicles are piloted across industries. As the CEO of Fluidity Technologies, he has big plans for what one-handed drone operation can do.

David Grimes, CEO and co-founder of Snap Diligence

David Grimes thought he was creating a useful tool to vet colleagues. Turns out, he made a way for warm connections better than LinkedIn. Courtesy of Snap Diligence

Hell hath no fury like a businessman scorned. When a business partner ended up being a shady miscreant, David Grimes realized there wasn't a digital vetting tool where you can evaluate a potential associate. After thinking on the idea for a while, Grimes found a co-founder and a way to create an algorithm that can take public information and run it against a person. The company he created is called Snap Diligence.

Now, the tool has morphed into something else that's been unexpectedly in demand. Snap Diligence can find business connections through your already-established network of associates. It's this new feature the company is looking to expand in 2019.

What started as a way to protect your company from a sketchy business partner has turned into a digital networking tool. Getty Images

Houston software startup pivots to provide digital networking solutions

Several years ago, David Grimes had a business partner who played dirty. It wasn't until the trial that followed the business wrongdoing that Grimes discovered the man had a history of cheating companies out of money. Grimes envisioned a software service that used public information to research potential investors or associates before signing on the dotted line of a partnership.

"I wanted to find a tool that would alleviate that pain and that risk of doing business," Grimes says. "I couldn't find that tool."

When Grimes met private investigator, Daniel Weiss, at a Christmas party, he picked his brain about this idea of vetting business partners or investors. Turns out, that's exactly what Weiss did already. Together, the two co-founded Houston-based Snap Diligence, a software-as-a-service company that uses its custom algorithm to digitally investigate these potential associates.

The technology would data mine various public information avenues, such as Secretary of State documentation of business owners, managers, and directors, state district court records, and insurance records. It would look at all filings and legal cases of both the person and all the companies they have been associated with. It would even look at that person's contacts and see who you have in common and who you don't know about.

Unintended technology
Now that the tool the Grimes wanted finally existed, and Snap Diligence went into beta in April of 2017. The team reached out to all ages and industries to use the software. In January of 2018, they reconvened and looked at who was using the tool and how they were using it.

"They were mostly people in their 30s," Grimes says. "I didn't think they would have enough experience with risk to appreciate the tool. But what they were using it to connect to new opportunities."

Snap Diligence allowed the users to access new business connections and potential clients based on their already established networks.

"It's not LinkedIn where you sat next to your connection four years ago at a breakfast club," Grimes says. "This is information on people who are actually involved in a business together."

A banker approached Grimes and asked him to datamine all his clients to see all the potential business he could have by finding other companies a client is involved in but that doesn't yet use the bank for.

So, with this new tool, Snap Diligence pivoted about 3 to 4 months ago and now looks at first and second degree of existing relationships for the purpose of targeting new business clients.

"We started running this customer analysis work — and we had to rework our algorithm some — to spit out this batch mining process for customers and how you expand an existing customer relationship into a new opportunity," Grimes says.

The tool has been most popular with commercial insurance and commercial banking, Grimes says. Private equity has been a big player too, although it's not as big as a proponent since they have smaller client bases.

Growth plans on the horizon
The company has a few major clients coming in, Grimes says, and also expects to be able to mine third degree connections soon too. Snap Diligence operates in several states, but as more information is able to be pulled in, the tool will soon grow to more markets.

"SEC data is something we want to add fairly quickly, as well as real estate data," Grimes says. "The key is just importing more and more data that can further fill in the picture of someone's footprint."

With growth on the mind, Grimes recognizes that Houston has with venture and talent. Both are aspects the local innovation community has but needs more of.

"We have plenty of talent here in Houston, but it's harder to find the talent that doesn't mind going into a startup with the risk that comes with it," Grimes says. "Finding the right talent is difficult."

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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."

7 Houston neighbors named to U.S. News' best places to live in 2026

Living Well

Several Houston suburbs have been crowned the best places to live in the U.S. for 2026, according to U.S. News & World Report. Sugar Land is the highest-ranked city in the Houston metro, and it ranks as the 10th best place to live in the country.

The annual list of Best Places to Live in the U.S. is designed to help readers make the most informed decisions when choosing where to settle down, using data from sources such as the U.S. Census Bureau, Department of Commerce, the Federal Reserve and the Bureau for Economic Analysis, as well as state and local sources.

For the 2026-2027 rankings, U.S. News featured 250 U.S. cities and ranked them across four livability indexes — quality of life, value, desirability, and job market — weighted by importance based on survey results of approximately 500 Americans. The rankings were also broken down state-by-state, as well as the best big, medium, and small cities overall.

Sugar Land is the No. 4 best places to live in Texas, and it soared into the No. 10 spot overall in the nation after ranking 16th last year. Sugar Land also ranks as the fourth-best mid-sized city to live in America for 2026-2027.

According to U.S. News, Sugar Land's median household income is far higher than the national average. Residents make $140,511 per year, while the average American household income is only $83,181.

Additionally, the $431,815 median home value in Sugar Land is also far greater than the $359,870 national average.

After ranking in the top 10 in the 2025 report, League City and Pearland now both rank outside the national top 10 for 2026. League City slipped from No. 6 to No. 13 this year, while Pearland dropped from No. 3 nationwide to No. 16.

These three Houston suburbs also boast highly desirable job markets for potential newcomers or current residents that want to start or change their career.

Houston proper, however, remains outside of the top 250 and is the 327th best place to live in the U.S., and it's the 60th best place to live in Texas.

Other cities in the greater Houston area that ranked among the top 100 include:

  • No. 28 – The Woodlands
  • No. 38 – Katy
  • No. 61 – Missouri City
  • No. 82 – Spring

The Lone Star State had a "strong showing" in the overall top 10 thanks to its "high affordability scores," a release said. Besides Sugar Land, three more popular Texas suburbs made the cut: Leander (No. 8) outside Austin and Dallas-Fort Worth suburbs Flower Mound (No. 3) and Frisco (No. 9).

"As prices of everyday goods continue to rise, consumers are considering affordability as a top priority when choosing a place to live," said U.S. News consumer lending analyst Erika Giovanetti. "While U.S. News’ consumer survey indicated that quality of life and affordability were close in importance, cost-of-living concerns resulted in many Americans putting what they can afford above their aspirations."

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This article originally appeared on CultureMap.com.

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