The 2024 Houston Innovation Awards will feature a new category: Scaleup of the Year, which honors a Bayou City company that's seen impressive growth in 2024.
From biotech companies to decarbonization startups, the inaugural finalists have expanded internationally, moved to larger facilities, completed clinical trials and more. Read on to learn more about these fast-growing startups.
Secure your tickets to the 2024 Houston Innovation Awards next Thursday, November 14, at TMC Helix Park.
Cart.com, a unified commerce and logistics solutions provider for B2C and B2B companies
With the acquisition of Amify, Cart.com has expanded its workforce and grown its suite of services. Photo courtesy of Cart.com
Clinching unicorn status with its 2023 series C raise, Cart.com is on a mission to unify commerce across sales and distribution channels and digital and physical capabilities with its omnichannel enterprise-grade software, services and logistics.
Founded in 2020 with nine acquisitions and $759.2 million raised to date, according to Crunchbase, Cart.com's recent achievements includes acquiring Pacsun’s fulfillment operators, brining a 2 million-square-foot facility online, expanding its executive team, and more.
"In the last 12 months, Cart.com has dramatically grown its fulfillment network’s scale and technological capabilities," writes CEO Omail Tariq in his Houston Innovation Awards application.
"We have been laser-focused on improving quality, performance and efficiency at scale while continuing to aggressively grow our customer base, expand our capabilities to customers in new industries and grow our physical presence to new locations," he continues. "Prioritizing our strategic growth initiatives has been critical in the current macroeconomic environment as profitable growth remains paramount for our team."
In 2021, Cart.com moved its headquarters to Austin, with most of the leadership team remaining in Houston. Two years later, the company announced its HQ return to the Bayou City.
"We've found Houston's business and university communities to be incredibly supportive of our efforts and have found the city to be a place that is both easier and more affordable to bring together our global employee population at more regular intervals," Tariq adds in the app.
Coya Therapeutics, a clinical-stage company developing therapies for neurodegenerative, autoimmune, and metabolic diseases
Houston company with revolutionary neurodegenerative disease treatment shares milestones since IPOCoya Therapeutics rang the closing bell at Nasdaq last week, celebrating six months since its IPO, new data from trials, and additions to its team. Photo via LinkedInRevolutionary biotech company Coya Therapeutics Inc. (NASDAQ: COYA) may have closed its IPO in January 2023 for more than $15 million, but the company has made some of its most significant strides in the development of its lead product that prevents the further spreading of neurodegenerative diseases this year.
Known as COYA 302, the product uses a unique dual mechanism that is now being developed for the treatment of Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), Frontotemporal Dementia (FTD), Parkinson’s disease and Alzheimer’s disease. The company published its phase 1 proof-of-concept study in the peer-reviewed journal Frontiers in Neurology that showed COYA 302's ability to stop clinical progression in ALS at 24 weeks in combination therapy, which helped earn the company a $5 million in strategic investment from the Alzheimer’s Drug Discovery Foundation to continue to develop the product for a planned Phase 2 trial focused on FTD.
Last year the company also added to its C Suite, naming Dr. Arun Swaminathan as chief business officer and Dr. Fred Grossman as president and chief medical officer.
Coya merged with Nicoya Health Inc. and raised $10 million in its series A in 2020.
NanoTech Materials, a chemical manufacturer that integrates novel heat-control technology with thermal insulation, fireproofing, and cool roof coatings to drastically improve efficiency and safety
Growing Houston startup moves into 43,000-square-foot facility amid 'hypergrowth phase'NanoTech Materials celebrated its move into a new facility — a 43,000-square-foot space in Katy, Texas, this weekMike Francis, co-founder and CEO of NanoTech Materials, told InnovationMap earlier this year that it was in a "hype growth" phase—and meant it.
NanoTech, known for its proprietary Insulative Ceramic ParticleTM (ICP) that uses nanotechnology to optimize energy efficiency and heat control in the built environment, expanded into a new 43,000-square-foot facility this year and tripled its valuation in the last two years, according to its Innovation Awards application. The company also expanded into the Middle East and Singapore and successfully scaled up its NanoTech Cool Roof Coat to commercial markets.
The company closed a $5 million seed round in 2020 and an oversubscribed Series A round last year for $13 million. It was the first company selected for the Houston-based Halliburton Labs in 2021 and joined the Rice Alliance Clean Energy Accelerator in 2023.
Square Robot, an advanced robotics company serving the energy industry and beyond by providing submersible robots for storage tank inspections
Square Robot has a team of 15 in Houston. Photo courtesy\u00a0of Square RobotSubmersible robotics company Square Robot launched its Houston office in 2019 and expanded in the Bayou City this past year.
According to the company's Innovation Award application, the company doubled its fleet of autonomous, submersible robots that service the energy industry, deploying to Malaysia, Vietnam, Thailand, Australia, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. Its robots are specifically used for storage tank inspections and eliminating the need for humans to enter dangerous and toxic environments.
Square Robot moved to a new, customer-facing Houston facility this year and also developed a new innovative technology that's able to gather phased ultrasonic readings on insulated tank shells while the tank is operational.
The company closed a Series A round in 2018 for $6 million.
Syzygy Plasmonics, a company that's decarbonizing chemical production with a light-powered reactor platform that electrifies the production of hydrogen, syngas, and fuel with reliable, low-cost solutions
Houston climatetech startup selected for inaugural global entrepreneur competitionSyzygy Plasmonics is going to be competing in Gastech's new startup competition. Photo courtesy of SyzygyKnown for the world’s first light-powered reactor cell for industrial chemical reactions, Syzygy Plasmonics began taking orders earlier this year for its Rigel reactor cell after meeting initial performance targets. The cell enables a customer to produce up to five tons of low-carbon hydrogen per day.
The groundbreaking technology earned the company regional, national and global attention. Fast Company magazine placed the company on its energy innovation list. It was also named a finalist for Ernst & Young’s Entrepreneur Of The Year 2024 Gulf South Award and was invited to participate in Gastech's global entrepreneur competition.
The company most recently raised $76 million in a Series C round in 2022.
