Top 5 Houston health tech stories of 2019

2019 in review

Houston, home to the largest medical center in the world, had a lot of trending health tech stories this year. Photo by Dwight C. Andrews/Greater Houston Convention and Visitors Bureau

Editor's note: As 2019 comes to a close, InnovationMap is looking back at the year's top stories in Houston innovation. Within the health category, top stories included new details from the Texas Medical Center's ongoing TMC3 project, health tech and medical device startups in Houston, and more.

Texas Medical Center reveals new details and renderings for its TMC3 campus

The design and construction team has been announced for TMC3. Courtesy of Elkus Manfredi Architects

The Texas Medical Center just announced the dream team of architects and designers that are making TMC3 into a reality.

Elkus Manfredi Architects, Transwestern, and Vaughn Construction are the three companies that will serve as the architectural and development team for the 37-acre research campus. TMC3's founding institutions — TMC, Baylor College of Medicine, Texas A&M University Health Science Center, The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, and The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center — decided on the three entities.

"Texas Medical Center is eager to move forward with a bold, imaginative and dynamic new design vision for the TMC3 Master Plan," says TMC CEO and president, Bill McKeon, in a press release. "With the combined talents of Elkus Manfredi Architects, Transwestern, and Vaughn Construction on-board, I couldn't be more confident that this dream team will flawlessly execute the totality of the project's vision and fulfill its mission to bring together leading researchers and top-tiered expertise from the private sector to create the number one biotechnology and bioscience innovation center in the entire world."

TMC3 was first announced just over a year ago and is planned to open in 2022. The campus will incorporate research facilities, retail space, residential plans, a hotel and conference center, and green space. Parking will be underground to optimize surface area. To continue reading this top story, click here.

5 Houston medical device companies changing the industry

As medicine and technology both advance, these Houston startups are at the forefront of the industry. Getty Images

With the Texas Medical Center at the heart of Houston, health advancement opportunities are endless. Medical breakthroughs are happening across town, but as technology advances, the industry is seeing more and more startups popping up to take new tech tools and applying them to traditional medical devices and procedures.

These five Houston startups are developing the future of the industry — one device at a time. To continue reading this top story, click here.

Houston medical device company gains FDA approval

Houston-based Saranas has received de novo distinction from the FDA for its bleed monitoring technology. Courtesy of Saranas

When it comes to early bleeding detection, Houston-based Saranas, which closed $2.8 million in funding last year, is ahead of the game with its Early Bird Bleed Monitoring System. The Food and Drug Administration has recognized the medical device company and granted it De Novo distinction.

"Gaining FDA approval for the Early Bird is a significant milestone for Saranas as it demonstrates our continued commitment to address an unmet need for real-time detection and monitoring of endovascular bleed complications," says Saranas president and CEO, Zaffer Syed in a release. "As the first and only device on the market for early bleed detection, we have the potential to significantly reduce bleeding complications and related healthcare costs, while improving clinical outcomes in patients undergoing endovascular procedures."

The Early Bird technology is designed to detect bleeding from vessel injury caused by a surgery, for instance. One in five patients experienced a bleed complication in over 17,000 large-bore transcatheter procedures, according to the release which cites the National Inpatient Sample Database. To continue reading this top story, click here.

5 Houston biotech companies taking health care to new levels

With the Texas Medical Center in their backyard, these Houston biotech companies are creating breakthrough technologies. Getty Images

Houston is the home of the largest medical center in the world, so it comes as no surprise that the Bayou City is also home to breakthrough technologies. Here are five Houston companies developing some of this biotech advancements. To continue reading this top story, click here.

TMCx announces its next medical device cohort with 5 startups hailing from Houston

The next TMCx cohort begins August 5. Courtesy of TMC

The Texas Medical Center's startup accelerator, TMCx, has added 19 companies from all around the world to join its medical device family.

The TMC Innovation Institute team narrowed down 140 applications to 40 for the second round of the process, which includes face-to-face interviews, according to a release. After those, 18 companies were selected to join the TMCx09 class, which focuses on medical devices. The last cohort, which specialized in digital health, concluded on June 6.

Out of the 18 companies, five are from Houston. Four other startups hail from other corners of the United States, while 10 international companies also made the cohort. The program commences on August 5, and will run for four months before concluding in a demo day event in November. To continue reading this top story, click here.

Houston-based Saranas' technology is now being premiered in the United States. Courtesy of Saranas

Houston medical device company launches is product in the U.S. and hires new exec

Early bird gets the worm

A Houston company is changing the game when it comes to early bleed detection, and now the company can provide its life-saving service to the United States.

Saranas Inc., which received FDA approval for its Early Bird Bleed Monitoring System in March, announced that it is launching its device in the US. at the Transcatheter Cardiovascular Therapeutics Conference next week in San Francisco. The device is designed to detect and track bleeding complications related to endovascular procedures. These medical procedures treat problems, such as aneurysms, that affect blood vessels.

"As the first and only early bleed detection system on the market, the Early Bird is ideally positioned to play a key role in making the rapidly expanding, minimally-invasive catheter-based procedures safer by providing physicians with bleed monitoring in real-time," says Saranas president and CEO, Zaffer Syed, in a news release. "With the launch of the Early Bird, physicians will now have a standard of care to monitor the bleed status of the patient during and post procedure, receive timely notifications of actual bleeds, and potentially reduce the severity of bleeding complications and resulting costs, while protecting clinical outcomes in patients undergoing endovascular procedures."

Around 20 percent of patience suffer a bleeding complication during endovascular procedures, like transcatheter aortic valve replacement, endovascular aneurysm repair, and percutaneous hemodynamic support, and, according to a report in the Journal of the American Medical Association, these complications result in higher mortality, longer hospital stays, and higher medical bills.

In other exciting news for the company, Saranas hired Tom Lucas as vice president of sales and marketing. He has 28 years of experience in medical sales, and he is tasked with business development, marketing, sales, and more for the company.

"Tom is a critical strategic hire for Saranas as we launch our first product in the U.S.," Syed says in the release. "His expertise will be invaluable as we expand distribution of the Early Bird into additional centers of excellence."

Saranas began its clinical trials last year after raising $2.8 million. The company revealed the results of those trials earlier this year, leading to the FDA approval.

"Our first-in-human study demonstrated that clinical concordance with Early Bird detection and CT scans (primary endpoint) was near perfect, and the early discovery of bleed onset and progression during the procedure occurred in 31 percent of cases with 69 percent occurring post procedure," says Saranas Chief Medical Officer Dr. Philippe Généreux in the release. "Compared to the current paradigm of waiting for symptoms, which could take hours to develop, the Early Bird allows physicians to detect bleeding in real-time and take the necessary actions quickly to protect the outcomes of the procedure and aid recovery for the patient."

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With boost from Houston, Texas is the No. 1 state for economic development

governor's cup

Texas is on a 14-year winning streak as the top state for attracting job-creating business location and expansion projects.

Once again, Texas has claimed Site Selection magazine’s Governor’s Cup. This year’s honor recognizes the state with the highest number of economic development projects in 2025. Texas landed more than 1,400 projects last year.

Ron Starner, executive vice president of Site Selection, calls Texas “a dynasty in economic development.”

Among metro areas, Houston lands at No. 2 for the most economic development projects secured last year (590), behind No. 1 Chicago and ahead of No. 3 Dallas-Fort Worth.

In praising Houston as a project magnet, Gov. Greg Abbott cites the November announcement by pharmaceutical giant Lilly that it’s building a $6.5 billion manufacturing plant at Houston’s Generation Park.

“Growth in the Greater Houston region is a great benefit to our state’s economy, a major location for foreign direct investment and key industry sectors like energy, aerospace, advanced manufacturing, and life sciences,” Abbott tells Site Selection. “Houston is also home to one of the largest concentrations of U.S. headquarters for companies from around the world.”

In 2025, Fortune ranked Houston as the U.S. city with the third-highest number of Fortune 500 headquarters (26).

Texas retained the Governor’s Cup by gaining over 1,400 business location and expansion projects last year, representing more than $75 billion in capital investments and producing more than 42,000 new jobs.

Site Selection says Texas’ project count for 2025 handily beat second-place Illinois (680 projects) and third-place Ohio (467 projects). Texas’ number for 2025 represented 18% of all qualifying U.S. projects tracked by Site Selection.

“You can see that we are on a trajectory to ensure our economic diversification is going to inoculate us in good times, as well as bad times, to ensure our economy is still going to grow, still create new jobs, prosperity, and opportunities for Texans going forward,” Abbott says.

Houston e-commerce giant Cart.com raises $180M, surpasses $1B in funding

fresh funding

Editor's note: This article has been updated to clarify information about Cart.com's investors.

Houston-based commerce and logistics platform Cart.com has raised $180 million in growth capital from private equity firm Springcoast Partners, pushing the startup past the $1 billion funding mark since its founding in 2020.

Cart.com says it will use the capital to scale its logistics network, expand AI capabilities and develop workflow automation tools.

“This investment will strengthen our balance sheet and provide us with the flexibility to accelerate our strategic priorities,” Omair Tariq, CEO of Cart.com, said in a news release. “We’ve built a platform that combines commerce software with a scaled logistics network, and we’re just getting started.”

In conjunction with the funding, Springcoast executive-in-residence Russell Klein has been appointed to Cart.com’s board of directors. Before joining Springcoast, he was chief commercial officer at Austin-based Commerce.com (Nasdaq: CMRC). Klein co-led Commerce.com’s IPO, led the company’s mergers-and-acquisitions strategy and played a key role in several funding rounds.

“The team at Cart.com has demonstrated excellence in their ability to scale efficiently while continuing to innovate,” Klein said. “I’m excited to join the board and support the company as it expands its AI-driven capabilities, deepens enterprise relationships, and further strengthens its position as a category-defining commerce and fulfillment platform.”

Before this funding round, Cart.com had raised $872 million in venture capital and reached a valuation of about $1.6 billion, according to CB Insights. With the new funding, the startup has collected over $1 billion in just six years.

This is the income required to be a middle class earner in Houston in 2026

Cashing In

A new study tracking the upper and lower thresholds for middle class households across the nation's largest cities has revealed Houstonians need to make at least a grand more than last year to maintain their middle class status this year.

According to SmartAsset's just-released annual report, "What It Takes to Be Middle Class in America – 2026 Study," Houston households need to make anywhere from $42,907 to $128,722 to qualify as middle class earners this year.

Compared to 2025, Houstonians need to make $1,153 more per year to meet the minimum threshold for a middle class status, whereas the upper bound has stretched $3,448 higher. The median income for a Houston household in 2024 was $64,361, the study added.

SmartAsset's experts used 2024 Census Bureau median household income data for the 100 biggest U.S. cities and all 50 states and determined middle class income ranges by using a variation of Pew Research's definition of a middle class household, stating the salary range is "two-thirds to double the median U.S. salary."

In the report's ranking of the U.S. cities with the highest household incomes needed to maintain a middle class status, Houston ranked No. 80.

In the report's state-by-state comparison, Texas has the 24th highest middle class income range. Overall, Texas households need to make between $53,147 and $159,442 to be labeled "middle class" in 2026. For additional context, the median income for a Texas household in 2024 came out to $79,721.

"Often, the expectations that come with the term 'middle class' include reaching home ownership, raising kids, the comfort of modest emergency funds and retirement savings, and the occasional splurge or vacation," the report said. "And as the median household income varies widely across the U.S. depending on the local job market, housing market, infrastructure and other factors, so does swing the bounds on what constitutes a middle class income in America."

What it takes to be middle class elsewhere around Texas

Two Dallas-Fort Worth suburbs – Frisco and Plano – have some of the highest middle class income ranges in the country for 2026, SmartAsset found.

Frisco households need to make between $96,963 and $290,888 to qualify as middle class this year, which is the third-highest middle class income range nationwide.

Plano's middle class income range is the eighth highest nationally, with households needing to make between $77,267 and $231,802 for the designation.

Salary range needed to be a middle class earner in other Texas cities:

  • No. 28 – Austin: between $60,287 and $180,860
  • No. 40 – Irving: between $56,566 and $169,698
  • No. 44 – Fort Worth: between $55,002 and $165,006
  • No. 57 – Garland: between $50,531 and $151,594
  • No. 60 – Arlington: between $49,592 and $148,77
  • No. 61 – Dallas: between $49,549 and $148,646
  • No. 73 – Corpus Christi: between $44,645 and $133,934
  • No. 77 – San Antonio: between $44,117 and $132,352
  • No. 83 – Lubbock: between $41,573 and $124,720
  • No. 84 – Laredo: between $41,013 and $123,038
  • No. 89 – El Paso: between $39,955 and $119,864
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This article originally appeared on CultureMap.com.

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