3 ways artificial intelligence is changing Houston's future

Guest column

Artificial intelligence is changing Houston — one industry at a time. Photo via Getty Images

Artificial intelligence is the buzzword of the decade. From grocery shopping assistance to personal therapy apps, AI has sunk its teeth into every single industry. Houston is no exception to the AI boom. Enterprise-level companies and startups are already flocking to H-town to make their mark in AI and machine learning.

Since the world is generating more data every minute — 1,736 terabytes to be exact — Houston-based companies are already thinking ahead about how to make sense of all of that information in real-time. That's where AI comes in. By 2021, 80 percent of emerging technologies will have AI foundations — Houston is already ninth on the list of AI-ready cities in the world.

AI and machine learning can process large amounts of data quickly and use that data to inform decisions much like a human would. Here are three ways Houston-based companies are using these emerging technologies to revolutionize the city's future.

Health care

The health care industry is primed for AI's personalization capabilities. Each patient that doctors and nurses encounter has different symptoms, health backgrounds, and prescriptions they have to remember. Managing that amount of information can be dangerous if done incorrectly. With AI, diseases are diagnosed quicker, medications are administered more accurately, and nurses have help monitoring patients.

Decisio Health Inc., a Houston-based health tech startup has already made its mark in the healthcare industry with its AI software helping to tackle the COVID-19 pandemic. Their software, in collaboration with GE Healthcare Inc, allows health care providers to remotely monitor patients. By looking at data from ventilators, patient monitoring systems, health records, and other data sources, doctors can make better decisions about patients from a safe distance.

Climate change

Climate change isn't solved overnight. It's an issue that covers water salinity, deforestation, and even declining bee populations. With a problem as large as climate change, huge amounts of data are collected and need to be analyzed. AI can interpret all of that information, show possible future outcomes, track current weather patterns, and find solutions to environmental destruction.

One Houston-based company in the energy tech industry, Enovate Upstream, has created a new AI platform that will help digitize the oil and gas sector. Their AI-powered platform looks at data from digital drilling, digital completions, and digital production, to give oil companies real-time production forecasting. Their work will hopefully make their oil production more efficient and reduce their carbon emission output. Since oil drilling and fracking are a major cause for concern around climate change, their work will make a difference in slowing climate change and make their industry as a whole more climate-conscious.

Energy

Energy is an industry rich with data opportunities—and as Houston's energy sector grows, AI has become a core part of their work. Houston's large influence in the energy sector has primed it for AI integration from startups like Adapt2 Solutions Inc. By using AI and machine learning in their software, they hope to help energy companies make strategic predictions on how to serve energy to the public efficiently. Their work has become especially important in the wake of COVID-19 and the resulting changing energy needs.

Another Houston-based company using AI to influence the energy industry is the retail energy startup Evolve Energy. Their AI and machine learning system help customers find better prices on fluctuating renewable resource—helping them save money on electricity and reducing emissions. The positive feedback from the public on their AI model has shown how energy companies are using emerging technologies like AI in a positive way in their communities.

The bottom line

Houston is more primed than most cities to integrate AI and machine learning into every industry. While there are valid concerns as to how much we should lean on technology for necessary daily tasks, it's clear that AI isn't going anywhere. And it's clear that Houston is currently taking the right steps to continue its lead in this emerging AI market.

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Natasha Ramirez is a Utah-based tech writer.

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Houston energy company exits, 3 recent investments from local fund, and more innovation news

Short stories

Houston's innovation ecosystem has been booming with news, and it's likely some might have fallen through the cracks.

For this roundup of short stories within Houston innovation, Texas Halo Fund makes three new investments, a Houston energy company exits, a growing Rice University startup gets grants, and more.

Octopus Energy acquires Houston-founded Evolve Energy

The $5 million deal means a new focus on Texas for the new parent company. Photo via evolvemyenergy.com

London-based renewable energy company Octopus Energy announced that it's acquired Houston-founded Evolve Energy in a $5 million deal, which represents Octopus's $100 million expansion into the United States market.

Octopus, which reached Unicorn status with a $1 billion valuation in April, will start its expansion in Texas, according to a news release, operating under the new name Octopus Energy US. Evolve Energy, which was founded in 2018 by Michael Lee, is a Texas-based Capital Factory portfolio company and finished first place in the 2019 EarthX startup competition. The company also has a Silicon Valley office, in addition to its local operation in Houston's Galleria area.

"Octopus Energy is inspirational in growing a customer base of over 1 million households in just four years. It has done so while also achieving customer satisfaction scores similar to Netflix and Amazon. It matches our aspiration for innovation and we're thrilled to be part of the Octopus family," says Lee in the release. "The US energy market is rapidly moving towards ultra-low cost renewable energy and is prime for a true digital transformation."

Texas Halo Fund makes three new investments

Here are the three latest investments from Texas Halo Fund. Getty Images

Houston-based Texas Halo Fund has made three recent investments in August and September.

Nexus AI, based in Chicago, the workforce management tech company uses artificial intelligence and organizational behavioral science to predict the best teams or individuals for a project on the startup's cloud-based platform.
Rellevate is a Connecticut-based digital fintech company that optimizes employer-based digital account and financial services.
MFB Fertility, a Colorado company, has created game-changing at-home test stripts for assaying the hormone progesterone branded as Proov.

Rice University program seeking data projects

The Rice D2K Lab wants to help startups and small businesses solve business concerns with data science. Photo courtesy of Rice

Adata-focused lab at Rice University is seeking data challenges for its group of next generation of data scientists to solve. The Rice D2K Lab is looking for sponsors for its Rice D2K Capstone project in Spring 2021. Rice's D2K Capstone program forms interdisciplinary teams of advanced undergraduate and graduate students to solve pressing real-world data science challenges. The program is accepting project proposals for the Spring 2021 semester through Monday, October 19.

Click here to learn more about the program, and click here to get involved.

California startup joins Chevron's Catalyst Program

CTV has a new startup in its Catalyst Program. Photo via Getty Images

Houston-based Chevron Technology Ventures announced that Oakland, California-based Brimstone Energy Inc. has joined CTV's Catalyst Program to continue its development of its decarbonization platform, which focuses on the generation of low-emissions hydrogen, as well as various commodity products, according to a release.

"Brimstone Energy is excited to be supported by Chevron, a multi-national industrial company," says Cody Finke, Ph.D., co-founder and CEO of Brimstone Energy, in the release. "It is good to see Chevron continue to back companies with decarbonization in their mission."

Rice University-born startup racks up $12.5 million in grants

OpenStax is growing its access to free online textbooks. Image via openstax.org

Rice University's OpenStax is able to greatly expand its library of free online textbooks thanks to new grants totaling $12.5 million. The funds derive from Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the Charles Koch Foundation and the Stand Together community, according to a press release from Rice.

The new funds will more than double OpenStax's files from 42 books to 90. Already, the platform has saved 14 million students around the world more than $1 billion.

"Nine years ago, we dreamed about solving the textbook affordability and access crisis for students," says Richard Baraniuk, the Victor E. Cameron Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Rice and founder and director of OpenStax, in the release. "Now, with this tremendous investment in open education, we will be able to not only accelerate educational access for tens of millions of students but also drive innovation in high-quality digital learning, which has become commonplace due to COVID-19."

OpenStax is planning to raise $30 million for continued library expansion as it aims to lower the barrier to higher education.

Houston-based Evolve Energy uses a subscription-based wholesale energy plan to help its customers find better prices for more sustainable resources. Photo via evolvemyenergy.com

AI-backed retail energy startup based in Houston prepares to grow its technology

new tech

A wholesale retail energy startup based in Houston is preparing to scale its artificial intelligence-backed business based on its positive customer feedback

Evolve Energy uses AI and machine learning to optimize energy usage, providing customers with the best wholesale energy prices on fluctuating renewable resources.

"We want to help our customers save a significant amount of money on electricity costs and help them decarbonize the grid," CEO Michael Lee tells InnovationMap."There's been a serious of emerging events that enable us to do both at the same time, it's no longer a choice."

Evolve Energy, founded in 2018, sells wholesale electricity at cost to residential customers in Texas, charging a $10 monthly subscription fee plus the cost of wholesale electricity. Using their AI technology, they predict when price surges are likely and determine how much energy the customer needs to hit the parameters set on the app by the customer and usage history. The customer does not need to do anything but pair Evolve with their smart thermostat.

According to Lee, this enables customers to continue to use the same volume of electricity but cut their bill by 40 percent over the course of a year. Evolve uses a different business model, positioning itself not as energy providers but as efficient energy managers, passing their wholesale rate with no markup for even more savings to the customer.

"It builds a lot of trust between the customer and the supplier, they truly see that our incentive is to save them money and not to sell them any more power," Lee says.

With the increasing trend of electrification, Lee sees the role of energy companies grow in importance. This gives energy managers like Evolve a magnified role as machine learning and AI becomes imperative to shift consumption when renewables are cheaper on the grid.

Evolve is backed by several investors including Matt Rogers, the original co-founder of Nest thermostats through his investment platform, Incite; Urban-X funded by BMW MINI which focuses on smart applications; and the Austin-based startup accelerator and investor, Capital Factory.

The company has been officially on the market for the past two months, but it's already working on deploying capital to build in features requested by customers. Evolve expects significant growth in the next few years due to its highly scalable model.

"I'm just glad we could create a product that no longer makes it a choice between reducing emissions and saving money," Lee says.

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Biosciences startup becomes Texas' first decacorn after latest funding

A Dallas-based biosciences startup whose backers include millionaire investors from Austin and Dallas has reached decacorn status — a valuation of at least $10 billion — after hauling in a series C funding round of $200 million, the company announced this month. Colossal Biosciences is reportedly the first Texas startup to rise to the decacorn level.

Colossal, which specializes in genetic engineering technology designed to bring back or protect various species, received the $200 million from TWG Global, an investment conglomerate led by billionaire investors Mark Walter and Thomas Tull. Walter is part owner of Major League Baseball’s Los Angeles Dodgers, and Tull is part owner of the NFL’s Pittsburgh Steelers.

Among the projects Colossal is tackling is the resurrection of three extinct animals — the dodo bird, Tasmanian tiger and woolly mammoth — through the use of DNA and genomics.

The latest round of funding values Colossal at $10.2 billion. Since launching in 2021, the startup has raised $435 million in venture capital.

In addition to Walter and Tull, Colossal’s investors include prominent video game developer Richard Garriott of Austin and private equity veteran Victor Vescov of Dallas. The two millionaires are known for their exploits as undersea explorers and tourist astronauts.

Aside from Colossal’s ties to Dallas and Austin, the startup has a Houston connection.

The company teamed up with Baylor College of Medicine researcher Paul Ling to develop a vaccine for elephant endotheliotropic herpesvirus (EEHV), the deadliest disease among young elephants. In partnership with the Houston Zoo, Ling’s lab at the Baylor College of Medicine has set up a research program that focuses on diagnosing and treating EEHV, and on coming up with a vaccine to protect elephants against the disease. Ling and the BCMe are members of the North American EEHV Advisory Group.

Colossal operates research labs Dallas, Boston and Melbourne, Australia.

“Colossal is the leading company working at the intersection of AI, computational biology, and genetic engineering for both de-extinction and species preservation,” Walter, CEO of TWG Globa, said in a news release. “Colossal has assembled a world-class team that has already driven, in a short period of time, significant technology innovations and impact in advancing conservation, which is a core value of TWG Global.”

Well-known genetics researcher George Church, co-founder of Colossal, calls the startup “a revolutionary genetics company making science fiction into science fact.”

“We are creating the technology to build de-extinction science and scale conservation biology,” he added, “particularly for endangered and at-risk species.”

Houston investment firm names tech exec as new partner

new hire

Houston tech executive Robert Kester has joined Houston-based Veriten, an energy-focused research, investment and strategy firm, as technology and innovation partner.

Kester most recently served as chief technology officer for emissions solutions at Honeywell Process Solutions, where he worked for five years. Honeywell International acquired Houston-based oil and gas technology company Rebellion Photonics, where Kester was co-founder and CEO, in 2019.

Honeywell Process Solutions shares offices in Houston with the global headquarters of Honeywell Performance Materials and Technologies. Honeywell, a Fortune 100 conglomerate, employs more than 850 people in Houston.

“We are thrilled to welcome Robert to the Veriten team,” founder and CEO Maynard Holt said in a statement, “and are confident that his technical expertise and skills will make a big contribution to Veriten’s partner and investor community. He will [oversee] every aspect of what we do, with the use case for AI in energy high on the 2025 priority list.”

Kester earned a doctoral degree in bioengineering from Rice University, a master’s degree in optical sciences from the University of Arizona and a bachelor’s degree in laser optical engineering technology from the Oregon Institute of Technology. He holds 25 patents and has more than 25 patents pending.

Veriten celebrated its third anniversary on January 10, the day that the hiring of Kester was announced. The startup launched with seven employees.

“With the addition of Dr. Kester, we are a 26-person team and are as enthusiastic as ever about improving the energy dialogue and researching the future paths for energy,” Holt added.

Kester spoke on the Houston Innovators Podcast in 2021. Listen here

Startup funding, sportstech win and more trending innovation news for January

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