Houston digital health platform Koda lands strategic investment

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Tatiana Fofanova and Dr. Desh Mohan, founders of Koda Health. Photo courtesy Koda Health

Houston-based advance care planning platform Koda Health has added another investor to the lineup.

The company secured a strategic investment for an undisclosed amount from UPMC Enterprises, the commercialization arm of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. The funding is part of Koda's oversubscribed series A funding round that closed in October, according to a release.

"UPMC Enterprises’ investment is a meaningful signal, not just to Koda, but to the broader market," Dr. Desh Mohan, chief medical officer and co-founder of Koda Health, said in the news release. "It validates that health systems are ready to invest in infrastructure that makes advance care planning work the way it should: proactively, at scale, and with the human support that these conversations require. Having UPMC Enterprises as a strategic investor puts us in a unique position to prove what's possible."

Koda has raised $14 million to date, according to a representative from the company. Its series A round was led by Evidenced, with participation from Mudita Venture Partners, Techstars and the Texas Medical Center last year. At the time, the company said the funding would allow it to scale operations and expand engineering, clinical strategy and customer success. The company described the round as a "pivotal moment," as it had secured investments from influential leaders in the healthcare and venture capital space.

Koda Health, which was born out of the TMC's Biodesign Fellowship in 2020, saw major growth last year, as well, and now supports more than 1 million patients nationwide through partnerships with Cigna Healthcare, Privia Health, Guidehealth, Sentara, UPMC and Memorial Hermann Health System.

The company integrated its end-of-life care planning platform with Dallas-based Guidehealth in April 2025 and with Epic Systems in July 2025. It also won the 2025 Houston Innovation Award in the Health Tech Business category. Read more here.

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Koda Health, Houston, uses AI to help guide difficult conversations in health care, starting with end-of-life care planning. Image via kodahealthcare.com

Houston health tech startup using AI in palliative care scores $256,000 grant to test its product

Med tech moves

A new Houston-based digital advanced care planning company is streamlining some of the most difficult conversations in the health care industry around palliative care.

Founded by Tatiana Fofanova, Dr. Desh Mohan, and Katelin Cherry, Koda Health uses AI to help patients create advance medical care directives and documents—such as a living will—through an easy to use web-based interface.

Koda Health uses a conversational platform where users can enter information about their values, living situations, quality of life wishes, and more while learning about different care options at their own speed. It also uses a proprietary machine learning approach that personalizes audio-video guided dialogue based on the patient's individual and cultural preferences.

The app then autogenerates legal and medical documents, which patients can notarize or electronically witness the forms through the app or on their own.

According to Fofanova, who earned her PhD in in Molecular Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston and now acts as the company's CEO, what historically has been a time consuming and expensive process, through Koda Health, takes an average of 17 minutes and is completely free of charge to the end user.

"We hope to reduce any outstanding barriers to access that might exist," Fofanova says. "It is very frequently the oldest and the poorest that are the highest utilizers of health care that don't have access to these solutions."

The app is also projected to save health care systems roughly $9,500 per patient per year, as it allows for hospitals and organizations to better plan for what their patient population is seeking in end-of-life-care.

The B2B platform was born out of the TMC's Biodesign Fellowship, which tasked Koda's founding members with finding solutions to issues surrounding geriatric care in the medical center. In March 2020, Koda incorporated. Not long after ICU beds began to fill with COVID-19 patients, "galvanizing" the team's mission, Fofanova says.

"It was no longer this conceptual thing that we needed to address and write a report on. Now it was that people were winding up in the hospital at alarming rates and none of those individuals had advanced care planning in place," she says.

After accelerating the development of the product, Koda Health is now being used by health care systems in Houston, Texas, and Virginia.

The company recently received a Phase I grant of $256,000 from the National Science Foundation, which will allow Koda to deploy the platform at Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist and test it against phone conversations with 900 patients. Fofanova says the company will also use the funds to continue to develop personalization algorithms to improve Kona's interface for users.

"We want to make this a platform that mimics a high quality conversation," she says.

After Koda completes the Phase I pilot program it will then be eligible to apply for a Phase II award of up to $1 million in about a year.

Koda Health was founded by Tatiana Fofanova, Dr. Desh Mohan, and Katelin Cherry. Photos via kodahealthcare.com

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Houston battery tech startup FlowCellutions acquired by Katy energy co.

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Katy-based TerraFlow Energy, an energy storage and infrastructure company, has acquired Houston-based battery technology startup FlowCellutions. Financial terms weren’t disclosed.

FlowCellutions still operates under its established name, but with the tagline “A TerraFlow Energy Company.” Becca Segel, founder and CEO of FlowCellutions, now runs the business as its president.

FlowCellutions specializes in electrochemical sensing, diagnostics, analytics, and testing that offer insights into battery chemistry, charging capabilities, and system performance.

“FlowCellutions has always been focused on developing better ways to understand what is happening inside a flow battery and using that information to improve how these systems perform,” Segal said in a press release. “Joining TerraFlow gives us the opportunity to apply that work at a much larger scale while continuing to build the capabilities and expertise that make FlowCellutions unique.”

The FlowCellutions platform supports data centers and other heavy users of power. It’s designed to help reduce operating costs, prevent failures and costly downtime, and extend battery lifetime from about seven years to more than 30 years.

Segel founded the company in 2022. A member of Greentown Labs, the company raised more than $2 million in non-dilutive funding and received $1.5 million in National Science Foundation funding earlier this year.

FlowCellutions is one of five finalists in the Energy Transition Business category of InnovationMap’s 2026 Houston Innovation Awards.

“FlowCellutions brings a depth of scientific and technical expertise that fits naturally with where TerraFlow is going,” Jon Parrella, CEO of TerraFlow, said in the release.

“As we move from developing these systems to deploying them at commercial scale, understanding performance at a deeper level matters,” he said. “Bringing FlowCellutions into TerraFlow strengthens that capability and gives both teams more opportunity to advance the technology.”TerraFlow, founded in 2024, develops long-duration energy storage and power infrastructure for data centers, industrial facilities, utilities and other large power consumers.

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This article originally appeared on EnergyCapitalHTX.com.

3 fast-growing Houston scaleups named Innovation Awards finalists

meet the finalists

From IPOs to groundbreakings, some of Houston's most innovative companies reached major milestones this year.

As part of the 2026 Houston Innovation Awards, our Scaleup of the Year category honors innovative later-stage startups that have recently reached a significant milestone in company growth. Three scaleups have been named finalists for the 2026 award.

Read more about these businesses, their founders and their breakthrough technologies below. The 2026 winners will be announced on InnovationMap.com in mid-November.

Erock

Energy infrastructure company Erock, previously known as Enchanted Rock, develops dual-purpose microgrids that rely on natural gas and renewable natural gas to produce lower carbon emissions and air pollutants than diesel generators. Its products can provide bridge power before grid interconnection, backup power during outages and dispatchable capacity that supports long-term grid reliability. The company has more than 1,100 megawatts of installed capacity and over 20 years of experience serving commercial, municipal and large-scale technology customers.

Erock completed its initial public offering this year, raising approximately $600 million in gross proceeds. It also grew its contracted power system sales backlog to approximately $1.7 billion, up tenfold year-over-year, with production sold out through 2028, according to the company's application. The company secured a major equipment order from Anthropic, began construction of the 366-megawatt El Paso Electric project supporting Meta's data center campus, and started assembly operations at its Hyperion facility in Cypress, Texas.

Hertha Metals

Hertha Metals produces lower-cost, lower-emission steel and high-purity iron. The company has developed a single-step process that uses natural gas as a direct reductant instead of metallurgical coal, which cuts production costs by more than 25 percent and emissions by up to 50 percent, according to the company. The same process produces high-purity iron needed for high-purity steels and rare earth magnets. The company says it aims to "re-industrialize America’s production of critical materials."

Hertha Metals was founded by CEO Laureen Meroueh in 2022 and emerged from stealth last year with more than $17 million in venture capital funding. The company closed a $133.65 million Series A this month and also broke ground on its $100M high-purity iron factory known as Chalyx in Conroe.

Venus Aerospace

Spacetech company Venus Aerospace is developing a high-thrust rotating detonation rocket engine (RDRE) that replaces the subsonic combustion used in conventional rocket engines. The RDRE is a compact, simpler engine that can deliver up to 15 percent greater efficiency for defense and space applications. It completed its first U.S. flight test of the engine last summer.

Venus Aerospace was founded in 2020 by CEO Cassie Duggleby and CTO Andrew Duggleby. It raised a $20 million Series A in 2022 and $42 million Series A2 in 2025. It closed a $91 million Series B earlier this year and expanded its leadership team. The company is working toward longer-duration and higher-thrust testing and advancing its flight program.

Texas ranks among top 10 best states for jobs in new report

jobs report

Business boosters often describe Texas as an economic engine. A new ranking from personal finance website WalletHub underscores that assessment.

WalletHub put Texas at No. 8 on its new list of the best states for jobs. Nebraska grabbed the No. 1 spot, and West Virginia landed at No. 50.

To compile the list, WalletHub evaluated 34 metrics from two categories: job market and economic environment. It then crunched the numbers to create a score for each state. A score of 100 represents the most favorable conditions for job seekers.

Texas ranked 25th in the job market category and second in the economic environment category. Texas’ eighth-place showing was based on a score of 59.23.

“The best states for jobs make it easier for residents to find and retain jobs, and employers in these states also offer very competitive compensation and benefits,” WalletHub analyst Chip Lupo said. “In addition, the top states are great places for people looking to raise a family, ranking among the best states for working parents.”

Data released in late October shows Texas led all states for job growth during the 12-month period that ended in September. In that time, Texas added 154,300 jobs at an annual rate of 1.1 percent.

“Texas is America’s jobs leader,” Gov. Greg Abbott said in a press release. “Businesses big and small invest with confidence in Texas and in our growing and skilled workforce. That means bigger paychecks for more Texans and more opportunities for Texas families to prosper for years to come.”

Abbott noted Texas reigns as the top state for attracting job-producing businesses and creating jobs at small businesses.

The Houston metro area actually saw a decline in new jobs in September, losing 7,300 jobs compared with the previous month. On a year-over-year basis, the region added 13,500 jobs, with professional and business services, construction, and private education and health services leading the growth.

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