California femtech leader integrates Houston-founded conversational AI tool

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Houston-founded Ema, an AI resource for maternal health support, has been loaded onto the Willow Innovations Inc. app, a platform for breastfeeding mothers. Photo courtesy of Willow

Willow users, meet Ema — you're new best AI-enabled friend.

Houston-founded Ema (née SocialMama), an AI resource for maternal health support, has been loaded onto the Willow Innovations Inc. app, a platform for breastfeeding mothers.

"We are thrilled to integrate our conversational AI platform into the Willow App and leverage the power of advanced technology to meet women where they are with the information they need," Amanda Ducach, founder of Ema, says in a news release. "Ema and Willow have a shared mission to make lasting improvements in women's health and we built a one-of-a-kind solution that addresses the unique challenges mothers face regularly.

"Our partnership represents a critical advancement for today's mothers and demonstrates how responsible AI can improve the maternal care experience," she continues.

Now, users on the app can utilize Ema's HIPPA-secure tool that pulls from a comprehensive, proprietary database of expert-backed information. The conversational AI chatbot responds prioritizing speed, accuracy, and empathy and compassion for users. Ema reports that their users "will feel like they are talking with their favorite postpartum (labor and delivery) nurse."

"New moms don't have enough support — for their feeding and parenting journey, or in their postpartum care. We're thrilled to partner with Ema to offer moms personalized information along this journey," adds Sarah O'Leary, CEO of Willow. "AI tools, when implemented thoughtfully, can help close gaps in delivering personalized guidance at an efficient scale and I'm excited about the impact Ema can have on the well-being of mothers in our Willow community."

Founded in 2018 as a way to connect new moms, Ema evolved with a major rebrand and pivot to AI-backed tools last year.

Willow was launched in 2014 and released the first wearable, in-bra breast pump in 2017.

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This week's roundup of Houston innovators includes Scott Gale of Halliburton Labs, Amanda Ducach of Ema, and Jon Nordby of Anthropy Partners. Photos courtesy

3 Houston innovators to know this week

who's who

Editor's note: Welcome to another Monday edition of Innovators to Know. Today I'm introducing you to three Houstonians to read up about — three individuals behind recent innovation and startup news stories in Houston as reported by InnovationMap. Learn more about them and their recent news below by clicking on each article.

Scott Gale, executive director of Halliburton Labs

Scott Gale, executive director of Halliburton Labs, joins the Houston Innovators Podcast to share his call to action for Houston Energy and Climate Startup Week. Photo courtesy of Halliburton Labs

Scott Gale will be the first to admit that hosting a week of curated events targeted to a group of individuals within the tech and energy space isn't a novel idea — Climate Week NYC has been taking over Manhattan for over a decade. But Gale believes Houston deserves to have its own time to shine.

Earlier this month, Halliburton Labs, Rice Alliance, and Greentown Houston announced the inaugural Houston Energy and Climate Startup Week 2024 to take place in September, but Gale, executive director of Halliburton Labs, says he hopes this is just the beginning of Houston organizations coming together to collaborate on the initiative.

"I think we have a really awesome initial coalition. Whether your the fifth company or organization to raise its hand to do something that week or the 50th — it really doesn't matter," Gale says on the Houston Innovators Podcast. "It really is an open invitation — and I want to make that super clear." Read more.

Amanda Ducach, founder and CEO of ema

Amanda Ducach, founder of ema, has raised funding. Photo courtesy of SocialMama

A Houston-based startup that's improving health and wellness for women with its artificial intelligence-backed platform has raised a bridge round of funding.

Ema closed its latest bridge round, bringing its total funding to nearly $2 million. The company received investment from Kubera's Venture Capital and Victorum Capital, which joined existing investors Hearst Labs, Wormhole Capital, Acumen America, and Techstars.

Ema strives to deliver "personalized, empathetic, and evidence-based support" to its users through its generative AI technology. The platform has more than 100,000 users, and has expanded into the B2B sector with $100,000 in contracts within just 30 days after pivoting to this model, according to the company.

"Ema was born from a deep-seated belief in the transformative power of AI to make women's health care more accessible and effective," Amanda Ducach, CEO of Ema, says in a news release. "Our recent funding and rapid B2B growth validate our approach and enable us to further our mission." Read more.

Jon Nordby, managing partner at Anthropy Partners

Founders with a laser focus on a problem, showed remarkable advantage, says Houston expert Jon Nordby. Photo courtesy

In a new series of guest columna for InnovationMap, Jon Nordby is sharing his observations from years with working with founders.

"My top observation is that the success of founders often hinges on their focus on a specific problem, from the perspective of the problem holder (which is not always their customer) and particularly a problem set they care deeply about," he writes. "This focus is far more impactful than merely having a great idea. Founders with a laser focus on a problem, showed remarkable advantages."

Nordby is the managing partner at Anthropy Partners, a Houston-based investment firm, and professor of entrepreneurship at the University of Houston. Read more.

Ema, which operates as a health and wellness-focused, AI-based chat for women, has raised additional funding. Screenshot courtesy of Ema

Houston AI femtech startup raises $2M round to expand platform to B2B opportunities

fresh funding

A Houston-based startup that's improving health and wellness for women with its artificial intelligence-backed platform has raised a bridge round of funding.

Ema closed its latest bridge round, bringing its total funding to nearly $2 million. The company received investment from Kubera's Venture Capital and Victorum Capital, which joined existing investors Hearst Labs, Wormhole Capital, Acumen America, and Techstars.

Ema strives to deliver "personalized, empathetic, and evidence-based support" to its users through its generative AI technology. The platform has more than 100,000 users, and has expanded into the B2B sector with $100,000 in contracts within just 30 days after pivoting to this model, according to the company.

"Ema was born from a deep-seated belief in the transformative power of AI to make women's health care more accessible and effective," Amanda Ducach, CEO of Ema, says in a news release. "Our recent funding and rapid B2B growth validate our approach and enable us to further our mission."

The company, originally founded as SocialMama looking to connect mothers digitally to each other and, later, physicians and experts, rebranded a year ago. The platform aims to be comprehensive and holistic to positively affect women's health and wellness journeys across life stages and categories.

"Our vision extends beyond immediate health concerns; we see Ema as a companion that can support women throughout their lives, offering guidance, support, and understanding whenever they need it," Ducach explains. "This latest round of funding will help us expand into new areas, including employee benefits, where we believe we can make a substantial difference."

Amanda Ducach founded the company in 2019. Photo via Twitter

This week's roundup of Houston innovators includes Amanda Ducach of ema, Bobby Bryant of DOSS, and Abbey Donnell of Work & Mother. Photos courtesy

3 Houston innovators to know this week

who's who

Editor's note: In this week's roundup of Houston innovators to know, I'm introducing you to three local innovators across industries — from femtech to real estate — recently making headlines in Houston innovation.

Amanda Ducach, founder and CEO of ema

Amanda Ducach, founder of ema is launching her business's new product. Photo courtesy of SocialMama

Amanda Ducach set out to create a platform where mothers could connect with each other socially, but when she launched SocialMama just ahead of a global pandemic, she soon learned there was a bigger market need for access to information surrounding women's health — from fertility to menopause.

After pivoting her femtech platform to include women's health experts, she realized her technology wasn't able to completely support growing user base. The platform, which was called SocialMama, saw users engaging with experts in similar ways — and as Ducach looked into growing the platforms users, she realized that 24/7 access to experts was going to be hard to scale.

"We noticed that most of these conversations were repetitive," Ducach tells InnovationMap. "You had women asking an expert about tracking ovulation a hundred times a day. Having an OBGYN answer that question a hundred times a day was crazy and just not scalable." Read more.

Bobby Bryant, CEO and founder of DOSS

DOSS is a real estate platform founded in Houston that helps democratize access to homeownership. Photo via askdoss.com

Real estate and homeownership has been historically exclusionary. Bobby Bryant — the first Black man to create and franchise a real estate brokerage brand — wanted to do something about that.

Considering the history of the real estate industry — women weren't able to buy homes without being married and African Americans were refused outright thanks to the country's history of redlining — Bryant tells InnovationMap he saw an opportunity for a business.

“I look at diversity as our superpower, and I look at the opportunity to kick that door down," he says. Read more.

Abbey Donnell, founder of Work & Mother

Work & Mother is expanding. Photo courtesy of Work & Mother

Houston-based Work & Mother, which outfits commercial buildings with lactation accommodations for working parents, announced this month that it has entered into an agreement to open two new lactation suites outside the state of Texas.

The company, founded by Abby Donnell, will open suites in two commercial office buildings in Boston, Massachusetts, and Arlington, Virginia, just outside of Washington, D.C. The new suites are expected to be completed this summer.

Work & Mother currently has suites in Allen Center, The Jones on Main and Four Oaks Place in Houston, as well as East Lake at Tillery in Austin and Lincoln Centre in Dallas. Read more.

A Houston founder is introducing you to ema — a GPT-based chat platform and your new best friend in women's health. Photo via Canva

Exclusive: Houston startup rebrands to provide AI chat tool focused on women’s health

meet ema

Amanda Ducach set out to create a platform where mothers could connect with each other socially, but when she launched SocialMama just ahead of a global pandemic, she soon learned there was a bigger market need for access to information surrounding women's health — from fertility to menopause.

After pivoting her femtech platform to include women's health experts, she realized her technology wasn't able to completely support growing user base. The platform, which was called SocialMama, saw users engaging with experts in similar ways — and as Ducach looked into growing the platforms users, she realized that 24/7 access to experts was going to be hard to scale.

"We noticed that most of these conversations were repetitive," Ducach tells InnovationMap. "You had women asking an expert about tracking ovulation a hundred times a day. Having an OBGYN answer that question a hundred times a day was crazy and just not scalable."

Ducach says that about 16 months ago, her team took a step back to recreate the platform incorporating GPT technology. GPT stands for generative pre-trained transformer, and is a family of artificial intelligence language models most recently made popular but ChatGPT developed by OpenAI.

Now, after building out the platform, Ducach's company has rebranded to ema. The AI-based chat tool — named from the three letters in the middle of "female" — is meant to feel like texting "your childhood best friend who became an OBGYN physician," Ducach says. Not only can the chat provide crucial medical information, but it has a memory and can pick up conversations where they left off to be a constant resource to users.

The new platform, deemed ema, operates as an AI-based chat for women to engage with. Screenshot courtesy of ema

"Ema can answer everything from, 'how do I improve my baby's latch,' to 'how to I get a diabetic-friendly brownie recipe,' to 'give me an affirmation that's spoken like Snoop Dog because I'm feeling sad today,'" Ducach says.

Ducach first described the evolution of the company to AI-based communication last summer on the Houston Innovators Podcast. Now, the platform is gearing up for its launch next month and plans to raise seed funding this year to double her current team of 10 people to support the company's growth. Ducach, who was accepted into the Techstars Austin program in 2021, also says she's looking for more beta users in the meantime, and those interested should reach out to her or her team.

Ultimately, Ducach says the mission of ema is to democratize access to women's health care so that women feel supported and just a few taps away from important information.

"Barriers to care for women who face socioeconomic disparities is where you see the need for change," Ducach says. "For us, it's reducing those barriers of care. Ema is always in your pocket. You have access to her 24/7. The way that ema is really structured and her purpose is to catch red flags so that we can then help the female user get to positive health outcomes."

Amanda Ducach founded the company in 2019. Photo via Twitter

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Houston startup funding surpasses $1B in 2025 despite national slowdown

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Houston-area startups raised more than $1 billion in venture capital during the first half of 2025 — almost double the haul for the first half of last year.

According to the new PitchBook-NCVA Venture Monitor, Houston-area startups raised $417.2 million in the second quarter of this year, compared with $281 million during the same period last year. In the first quarter of 2025, local startups collected $607.5 million in venture capital, compared with $281 million during the same period a year earlier.

Based on those figures, Houston-area startups picked up slightly over $1 billion in VC during the first half of this year, compared with $535 million in the first half of 2024.

Nationally, startups gained almost $70 billion in VC in the second quarter, down 25 percent from the same period a year ago, the PitchBook-NCVA Venture Monitor says.

Nizar Tarhuni, executive vice president of research and market intelligence at PitchBook, explained that “the VC landscape continues to navigate a fragile recovery” and is constrained by economic uncertainty.

However, startups in certain sectors are poised to attract a great deal of attention and venture capital over the next several years, according to the report.

“Companies operating in AI, national security, defense tech, fintech, and crypto — sectors aligned with the administration’s priorities — are attracting disproportionately more investor interest, and this trend will likely continue throughout President Donald Trump’s term,” the report says.

The AI sector accounted for 64 percent of VC deal value in the first half of 2025, according to the report.

2 Houston universities among world's best and more innovation news to know

Trending Topics

Editor's note: We're looking back at the biggest Houston business and innovation news from the first half of July. From the world's best universities to innovative cybersecurity staffing, catch up on the top InnovationMap stories from July 1-15 below:

2 Houston universities declared among world’s best in 2026 rankings

Rice is the No. 2 best school in Texas, and No. 119 in the world. Photo via Rice University

Two Houston universities are in a class of their own, earning top spots on a new global ranking of the world's best universities.

Rice University and University of Houston are among the top 1,200 schools included in the QS World University Rankings 2026. Ten more schools across Texas make the list. Continue reading.

Texas cybersecurity co. expands unique train-to-hire model to Houston

San Antonio-based Nukudo is bridging the global cybersecurity talent gap through immersive training and job placement in Houston. Photo via Getty Images

It’s increasingly more difficult to ensure the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of proprietary data and information in the ever-changing, ever-evolving digital world. Cyberattacks, including malware, phishing, and ransomware, are becoming increasingly common and sophisticated, posing a consistent threat to a company’s sustainability and bottom line.

To combat that trend, Nukudo, a San Antonio-based cybersecurity workforce development company, is expanding its initiative to bridge the global cybersecurity talent gap through immersive training and job placement to Houston. Continue reading.

Houston hospital performs first fully robotic heart transplant in the U.S.

Dr. Kenneth Liao and a team at Baylor St. Luke’s Medical Center used a surgical robot to implant a new heart in a 45-year-old male patient. Photo courtesy Baylor College of Medicine.

A team at Baylor St. Luke’s Medical Center, led by Dr. Kenneth Liao, successfully performed the first fully robotic heart transplant in the United States earlier this year, the Houston hospital recently shared.

Liao, a professor and chief of cardiothoracic transplantation and circulatory support at Baylor College of Medicine and chief of cardiothoracic transplantation and mechanical circulatory support at Baylor St. Luke’s Medical Center, used a surgical robot to implant a new heart in a 45-year-old male patient through preperitoneal space in the abdomen by making small incisions. Continue reading.

New Houston biotech co. developing capsules for hard-to-treat tumors

Sentinel BioTherapeutics is developing cytokine interleukin-2 (IL-2) capsules to fight many solid tumors. Photo via Getty Images.

Houston company Sentinel BioTherapeutics has made promising headway in cancer immunotherapy for patients who don’t respond positively to more traditional treatments.

The team sees an opportunity to use cytokine interleukin-2 (IL-2) capsules to fight many solid tumors for which immunotherapy hasn't been effective in the past. “We plan to develop a pipeline of drugs that way,” Sentinel CEO Rima Chakrabarti says. Continue reading.

Greentown Labs names Lawson Gow as its new Houston leader

Lawson Gow, founder of The Cannon, will lead Greentown Houston. Photo courtesy Greentown Labs.

Greentown Labs has named Lawson Gow as its Head of Houston.

Gow is the founder of The Cannon, a coworking space with seven locations in the Houston area, with additional partner spaces. According to Greentown, Gow will "enhance the founder experience, cultivate strategic partnerships, and accelerate climatetech solutions" in his new role. Continue reading.

Houston space companies land $150M NASA contract for vehicles and robots

space simulations

Houston-based MacLean Engineering and Applied Technology Services LLC, known as METECS, has received a five-year contract from NASA to develop simulations and software services for space-based vehicles and robots, with a maximum value of $150 million.

Two other Houston-area companies, Tietronix Software Inc. and Vedo Systems LLC, were assigned as subcontractors for the award.

"This award is a strong testament to NASA’s continued trust in the quality of our work and their confidence in our ongoing support of the human spaceflight program," John MacLean, president of METECS said in a release.

According to NASA, the awardees are tasked with providing:

  • Simulation and software services for space-based vehicle models and robotic manipulator systems
  • Human biomechanical representations for analysis and development of countermeasure devices
  • Guidance, navigation, and control of space-based vehicles for all flight phases
  • Space-based vehicle on-board computer systems simulations of flight software systems
  • Astronomical object surface interaction simulation of space-based vehicles
  • Graphics support for simulation visualization and engineering analysis
  • Ground-based and onboarding systems to support human-in-the-loop training

The contract is called Simulations and Advanced Software Services II (SASS II), and begins in October. This is the second time METECS has received the SASS award. The first also ran for five years and launched in 2020, according to USASpending.gov.

METECS specializes in simulation, software, robotics and systems analysis. It has previously supported NASA programs, including Orion, EHP, HLS, Lunar Gateway and Artemis. It also serves the energy, agriculture, education and construction sectors.

Tietronix Software has won numerous awards from NASA. Most recently, it won the NASA JSC Exceptional Software Award (2017). Some of its other customers include Houston Independent School District, Baylor College of Medicine, DARPA and Houston Methodist.

Video Systems offers software for implementing human-rated, AI and autonomous systems, as well as engineering services to address the needs of spaceflight and defense. The company has previously worked with NASA and METECS, as well as Axiom Space and defense contractor Lockheed Martin.

The three companies are headquartered near NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston.

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