Here's who to know in innovation this week in Houston. Courtesy photos

As we head into May, this week's Houston innovators are all thought leaders keeping our city and state at the forefront of technology and innovation — from consulting to real estate, and everything in between.

Amy Chronis, managing partner of the Houston office of Deloitte

Amy Chronis runs the Houston office of Deloitte and serves on the sustainability board for the GHP. AlexandersPortraits.com

Shortly after Amy Chronis was named as Deloitte's Houston managing partner, she got the call to join the sustainability committee for the Greater Houston Partnership. Chronis did not take this position lightly, she says, and she immediately started researching what Houston needed as a business ecosystem.

In March, as the chair for the organization's sustainability committee, she brought together a group of constituents to engage in a Smart Cities study with the goal to identify what Houston needs to focus on — what it wanted to be known for. She learned a lot about the city through the study.

"It's affirming how much all types of people with different backgrounds care and are interested in this topic and are highly desirous of our region moving forward," she says. "I also learned that things are more complicated or difficult than we would like — in terms of funding initiatives, for instance." Read the full story here.

Brad Deutser, author and founder of the Deutser Clarity Institute

DCI has been described as the "Wonkaland for business." Courtesy of DCI

Brad Deutser is taking his approach to business consulting and creative thinking to a whole new level with the Deutser Clarity Institute. The idea accelerator, think tank, and learning lab opens this week in Uptown.

"The Deutser Clarity Institute has captured the imagination of leaders across the country," says Deutser in a release. "Even with the available science on environmental design and leadership learning, we took a chance and pushed creativity and innovation to the farthest reaches to develop a fundamentally different space, way of learning and learning curriculum. We are also producing game changing research which will influence how leaders drive engagement." (Deutser serves on the board of InnovationMap.) Read the full story here.

Alex Doublet, CEO of Door.com

Buying a home is more digitized than ever — and here's how that's affecting the industry. Photo courtesy of Door

Alex Doublet is an honorary Houston innovator to know this week after he authored a guest article about technology trends in real estate that greatly affect Houston real estate. The Dallasite cites a recent lawsuit in which homesellers claim The National Association of Realtors, Realogy Holdings Corp., HomeServices of America, RE/MAX Holdings, Inc., and Keller Williams Realty, Inc. violated the federal antitrust law by conspiring the sellers to pay an inflated amount to the buyer's broker.

"The lawsuit highlights a new need for home buyers and sellers: transparency," writes Doublet. "Gone are the days when real estate agents can take a hefty commission from his or her clients without providing value that is worthy of the price tag. The sellers who came forward to shed light on this issue have provided further proof that the current real estate model is outdated, and some serious changes could be on the way." Read Doublet's article here.

Texas startups should be getting funded with Texas money, and here's why. Getty Images

Why it's important for Texas startups to get funding within the Lone Star State

Stay local

When you set out to disrupt a long-standing industry, one of the most important aspects is figuring out where you are going to get the money. Odds are, you are going to be OK with breaking the mold on other traditional practices such as forgoing the venture capitalist firms for smaller companies who share your innovative vision and want to invest in it.

That philosophy works well in Texas seeing as the big venture capitalists tend to stay on the East and West Coasts.

There are dozens of things to think about when starting a company. Funding can be the most important, and there are many ways to approach raising funding for your startup. Here are a few things to consider.

Think local

They say everything is bigger in Texas, and one thing is for certain, the Texas economy is thriving and historically very stable. Five of the top 10 fastest-growing cities in the U.S. are in Texas, and a recent Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas report found that Texas is the top state for corporate relocations due to our business-friendly climate.

Benefits of the Texas economy

Business owners and investors alike are noticing the rapid job growth, low tax rates, minimal regulation, successful economic development, and the fact that Texas is the largest exporting state in the nation.

It's important to explore and evaluate all of your options because there are investors everywhere – big and small. I explored fundraising in other states and had I gone that route, it most likely would have led to a successful fundraising campaign. However, it would have looked a lot different. I learned during the first round of fundraising that as much as the angel investment matters, the first meaningful investment might matter even more.

Explore family office investors — it's personal

Traditionally, companies looking for investors seek out the venture capitalist firms with deep pockets. You can joke that Texas is a venture capitalist desert. Compared to the "coasts," there are not many venture capitalist firms here.

I realized that what Texas does have plenty of, is family office investors. And I quickly learned that it was this type of organization that I truly desired. Why? Because local family offices are more likely to share your "homegrown" startup vision. They have true vested interest and it is really personal for them.

Also, the younger generations of these family businesses often lead the way in extending beyond oil wells, fracking, shopping centers and agriculture in seeking to invest in technology startups.

Expert tip: We used our personal connections to target regional investors such as Court Wescott; the founder of 1-800-Flowers; retired Hollywood Casinos CEO Jack Pratt; The Murchison Family; and residential real estate developer Phillip Huffines. We were able to successfully reach around $12 million in the Series A round of fundraising.

When we were ready for the next round of fundraising, we had everything we needed right here in Texas.

Great ideas get funded

Venture capitalists who put a lot of money into a lot of companies also delegate to those companies a lifespan, or a timeline for getting their money back.

Since the family offices believed in our concept and understood what we were doing, we were seen as more of a long-term investment and therefore given a longer time horizon than we would if we had gone the more traditional route of fundraising.

Investors like to watch their investments grow and typically they have more money for second and third rounds of funding when you can prove your success in the first few years.

The bottom line: Investing in Texas companies is a beneficial strategy due to the Lone Star State's booming economy and investing in companies that you believe in makes for a more meaningful relationship, which helps everyone involved succeed.

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Alex Doubet is the CEO and founder of Door Inc., a Texas-based, tech-infused real estate platform.

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Houston founder taps into AI tech to create game-changing healthy eating platform

there's an app for that

After many years of living to eat, a large swath of American society is now facilitating a seismic shift to the healthier alternative, eating to live.

But here’s the rub: eating healthy is confusing, time consuming and, unfortunately, oftentimes pricey.

So, anyone that can come in and cut through the healthy eating machine can carve out a necessary niche in the marketplace.

Enter Houstonian Mark Semmelbeck, founder and CEO of A Better Meal, a platform created to help busy families plan healthy meals easier and to make gradual improvements to their health and well-being.

“My vision is to use rapidly expanding AI technology together with the knowledge and wisdom of an active community to take the stress out of meal planning and improving nutrition,” says Semmelbeck, a seasoned oil and gas executive with over 30 years of experience in founding companies. “While developing the technology for the app, my daughter gave me two beautiful grandkids who both have significant food allergies. Combine that with the fact I now have five cardiac stents and the significance of eating well while paying attention to the details has only grown in importance.”

All-in-one app

Billed as the one-stop meal planning companion, A Better Meal promises users no additional stress in finding the time to look for recipes, make grocery lists, or prepare meals quickly. Families need healthy options and to be able to provide them with ease and that’s where this new application comes in.

“So, when I started A Better Meal, I wanted to answer two questions or help people answer two questions,” says Semmelbeck. “That is, a family gets home in the evening and they don't want to order out and they don't want to go out to eat, they can open up this app and it can tell them, ‘here's three things that you can make with what you have on hand that you like.’ The other question is, 'how can I make small changes to how I prepare my food, how I cook it, the ingredients that I use and small changes that can make my meals healthier.'

“So that was where we started. And then as we built the app out, got a minimum viable product out to people and in front of them, and we started seeing more as they used the app, what they actually wanted when they went to a meal planning app, so the last year and a half has been a process of refining the app to really set what people want in a meal planning and recipe app.”

When users download the app, which is a subscription-based tool, it starts with the simple things like, how many meals they’d like per day, if they have preferences in the types of food that they like, and, of course, if they have allergies.

Custom experience

Semmelbeck says that users are able to personalize the app and set up their own dashboard with meal planning. You can also use the app to analyze a new recipe you'd like to try.

"You can take a picture of, say a recipe written down, and you'd like to put that in your own personal database, you can take a picture of it, and it will interpret it and bring that into the app and then the app will calculate the calories and macros and the macro nutrients that that meal has in it so that you can see that information also," he says.

When it comes to food and meal planning, inserting the word “healthy” invariably invokes a litany of personal definitions, up to and including weight loss.

That definition isn’t wrong by any means, but for A Better Meal, it’s all about introducing healthier options into people’s everyday lives. The app won’t give you a specific diet to follow, but if users prefer a vegetarian, keto or paleo diet, the app will recommend recipes that will satisfy those disciplines.

“For a lot of people that's a huge help,” says Semmelbeck. “They just want to cook and eat healthier. They may like to have vegetarian days mixed in, but don't know where to find those recipes, the app can suggest recipes for a vegetarian meal. It can also recommend that substituting whole wheat flour for conventional flour for making pancakes, things like that.”

And for those users who don’t necessarily have a planned out starting place for meal preparation, they can search the internet or social media for meal plans and diets and then simply import those into the app.

“We also use AI to analyze recipes that would satisfy a certain type of diet that you would want to participate in,” says Semmelback. “But I will say that one of the main things we want to do is help you make small changes because again diets are great and a lot of people are on them, but few people maintain them for long periods of time because, in general, they can be very restrictive.

“So, we really want our goal to be able to help you make small changes with the things that you like to eat to make them healthier. And again, by healthy, certain kinds of fats are good, others you want to limit, certainly processed foods you want to limit, you want to limit the amount of added sugar, and you want to limit the amount of processed foods. That’s why we have our own nutritionist that helps us with those diets.”

Starting a journey

Currently, the nutritionist for A Better Meal is working just for the app in general, but as the platform grows, users will be about to ask direct questions or at least have access to educational materials about specific health issues, and specific diet recommendations for various health use.

“The app has been live for about a year and early on, we found that what people said they want is much different than what they actually use in the app. So, a lot of our work has been over the past year modifying the app, the way you move around in the app," says Semmelback. "We really want to use AI in ways that are helpful to people.

"I personally have dealt with heart disease, and I know that my doctor recommends less added sugar and processed foods. And so those are the kinds of things that we are using AI to do to help take recipes that you might like and make substitutions to those recipes so that they fit the kind of lifestyle you want," he continues. "What we're really concentrating on is the recipe part of the app and improving those and allowing them to be adaptable to the desires of the users. Finally, we really want to push into more education and more gamification where it actually makes it fun to use the app.”

Promising Houston startup expands energy efficiency product to Middle East, Singapore

big move

NanoTech Materials has announced a big expansion for its business.

The Houston company, which created a roof coating using nanotechnology that optimizes energy efficiency, has partnered with Terminal Subsea Solutions Marine Service SP to bring its products to the Gulf Cooperation Council and Singapore. TSSM will become the exclusive distributor and partner of Houston’s NanoTech Materials products, which will include the Cool Roof Coat, Vehicular Coat, and Insulative Coat for the GCC countries and Singapore.

NanoTech Materials technology that ranges from roof coatings on mid- to low-rise buildings to shipping container insulation to coating trucks and transportation vehicles will be utilized by TSSM in the partnership. NanoTech’s efforts are focused on heat mitigation that can reduce energy costs, enhance worker safety, and minimize business risks in the process.

“Businesses and communities within the GCC and Singapore feel the impact of extreme temperatures and longer Summers more acutely than any other region in the world,” Mike Francis, CEO of NanoTech Materials, says in a news release. “We have an opportunity to make a real impact here through reduced energy load, cooler and safer working conditions, and a reduced carbon emissions output from the hottest, driest place on earth. We are incredibly excited to be partnering with our colleagues at TSSM to bring this powerful technology to the region.”

One of the areas that will benefit from this collaboration is the Middle East. The GCC region is characterized by a desert climate, which has average annual temperature reaching 107.6°F and summer peaks climbing as high as 130°F. The effects of these extreme conditions can be dangerous for workers especially with strict labor laws mandating midday work bans under black flag conditions, which can result in productivity losses as well.

NanoTech’s proprietary technology, the Insulative Ceramic Particle (ICP), will be used to address challenges in energy efficiency and heat control in the logistics and built environment sector. The platform can be integrated into many applications, and the impact can range from reducing greenhouse gas emissions to protecting communities that are wildfire-prone. The core of the technology has a lower conductivity than aerogels. It also has a “near-perfect emissivity score” according to the company. The NanoTech ICP is integrated with base matrix carriers; building materials, coatings, and substrates, which gives the materials heat conservation, rejection, or containment properties.

By combining the ICP into an acrylic roof coating, NanoTech has created the Cool Roof Coat, which reflects sunlight and increases the material's heat resistance. This can lower indoor temperatures by 25 to 45°F in single-story buildings and reduce the carbon emissions of mid to low-rise buildings. This can potentially equal energy savings from 20 percent up to 50 percent, which would surpass the average 15 percent savings of traditional reflective only coatings.

“This technology will have a huge impact on supporting the region's aggressive climate initiatives, such as Saudi Arabia’s Green Initiative, aiming to reduce carbon emissions by 278 million tons annually by 2030,” Jameel Ahmed, managing director at TSSM, says in the release. “The regional efforts to enhance climate action and economic opportunities through substantial investments in green technologies and projects are evident, and we are proud to be offering a product that can make a difference.”

NanoTech says its coating maintains its effectiveness over time and doesn’t suffer UV degradation issues which are helpful, especially in extreme weather conditions workers and businesses face in regions like the Middle East.

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This article originally ran on EnergyCapital.