Houston venture fund of funds doles out $5 million in Austin firm in its first investment

money moves

LiveOak Venture Partners, an Austin-based firm, is the first recipient of Houston Exponential's fund of funds. Courtesy of LiveOak

After closing its initial round of funding last year, Houston Exponential's fund of funds, called the HX Venture Fund, has closed its first investment on March 29. Austin-based LiveOak Venture Partners received a $5 million investment from the fund.

The HX Venture Fund raised $30 million after launching in October of last year. The fund's goal is to invest in out-of-Houston venture funds in the hopes that they reinvest that money into Houston startups.

"We invested in LiveOak Venture II because of the firm's compelling investment track record, expertise and vigor of the general partners, their extensive network of relationships with proven entrepreneurs, and their focus on capital efficient early stage technology companies in Texas," says Guillermo Borda, managing partner at HX Venture Fund, in a release. "LiveOak's team is committed to making a significant impact in the Houston startup ecosystem."

The HX investment is a part of LiveOak's Fund II, which was oversubscribed and closed at $105 million, the company announced today. According to a release from LiveOak, Fund II is a continuation to the firm's dedication to Texas entrepreneurship. The fund will focus on funding within the state's four largest tech hubs — Austin, Houston, Dallas and San Antonio — and have initial investments ranging from $2 million to $4 million, the release states.

The firm's portfolio focuses on seed and series A funding, and most of its investments are Austin-based, with the exception of three Dallas companies. LiveOak invested in Houston-founded CS Disco, an AI-enabled tool for legal business, but the company has since moved to Austin, according to a public relations representative. LiveOak also invested in San Antonio-founded Infocyte, but the company also relocated to Austin.

Houston has been a strategic market for LiveOak, says managing partner, Krishna Srinivasan, in the release, citing the city's recent entrepreneurial activity.

"We are excited to partner with HX Venture Fund and its strategic investment partners, comprising multiple leading Houston based corporations, to catalyze and grow this activity," says Srinivasan, in the release. "Given LiveOak's investment strategy of being the leading source of capital for entrepreneurs across Texas, we view this investment as highly synergistic with our efforts to enable world-class, category dominating companies coming out of Houston."

HX modeled its fund after the Renaissance Venture Capital Fund in Michigan, from which 10 outside venture capital firms benefitted. Renaissance Fund reported positive results from the fund of funds and Chris Rizik, CEO and fund manager of Renaissance, serves as a member of the investment committee.

Nine companies committed to Houston Exponential's first round of funding. Shobeir Ansar/Getty Images

Houston Exponential's ambitious venture fund closes first round with $25 million

Money moves

Houston Exponential closed the first round of funding for its fund of funds with $25 million in commitments from nine companies. The money will go to non-Houston venture capitalists to invest back into Houston startups.

HX Venture Fund's first-round partners include: Insperity, Chevron, Shell, Quanta Services, Westlake Chemical, The Plank Companies, PROS, HEB, and Camden.

Kingwood-based Insperity was the anchor investor, committing to $5 million last October, according to the release. The company also provided an undisclosed amount of resources support the operations of the fund as it launched.

"This is another transformational moment for Houston," says Gina Luna, chair of Houston Exponential, in the release. "From day one at Houston Exponential, we have been executing a plan to accelerate the growth of the ecosystem, including connecting Houston startups with the capital they need to grow their businesses. This is a significant, tangible milestone. Houston's leading companies have stepped up in a big way to make this happen, and this is a clear signal that Houston is committed to success."

Houston-based venture capital firm Mercury Fund's co-founder and managing director, Blair Garrou, chaired the fund's advisory board. He's also a board member for HX.

The fund of funds won't donate to Houston organizations directly, Garrou says in a statement. The fund's organizers had a different approach to growing funds in Houston's startup space.

"The HX Venture Fund will invest in venture capital funds outside of Houston – generating investment and interest in the region while increasing the investable capital available to Houston-based startups," says Garrou. "The HX Venture Fund is built upon a proven model that provides multiple benefits to its investors."

The benefitting venture capital funds haven't yet been named.

HX modeled the fund after the Renaissance Venture Capital Fund in Michigan, from which 10 outside venture capital firms benefitted —Mercury Fund was one of the 10. It was Garrou who led the movement to get Renaissance Fund's CEO and Fund Manager, Chris Rizik, as a part of the HX Venture Fund from the start as a member of the investment committee.

The Michigan fund launched 9 years ago and exceeded all expectations. For ever dollar Rizik and his team invested, $17 came back into the Michigan area, he told the Houston Business Journal. He says Houston has the same potential.

"I've spoken to many cities about Renaissance's fund of funds model and the impact it has had on Michigan," says Rizik in the release. "Houston has leaned into this model and it is impressive what they have been able to accomplish in a short time. It is a testament to the commitment of Houston's business and tech leaders to growing the ecosystem. It's really exciting to see."

In October 2017, Houston Exponential was launched by Mayor Sylvester Turner's Innovation and Technology Task Force in collaboration with the Greater Houston Partnership's Innovation Round Table and the Houston Technology Center. HX's launch included three main goals, according to the release: "make Houston a top 10 innovation ecosystem, generate $2 billion in venture capital annually and create 10,000 new technology jobs a year by 2022."

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Houston Methodist awarded $4M grant to recruit head of Neal Cancer Center

new hire

Armed with a $4 million state grant, the Houston Methodist Academic Institute has recruited a renowned expert in ovarian and endometrial cancer research to lead the Dr. Mary and Ron Neal Cancer Center.

The grant, provided by the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas, enabled the institute to lure Dr. Daniela Matei away from Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago. There, she is the Diana Princess of Wales Professor in Cancer Research and chief of the Division of Reproductive Science in Medicine.

Matei will succeed Dr. Jenny Chang, who was hired last year to run the Houston Methodist Academic Institute.

At the Neal Cancer Center, located in the Texas Medical Center complex, oncologists work on innovations in cancer research, treatment, and technology. The center opened in 2021 after the Neals donated $25 million to expand Houston Methodist’s cancer research capabilities. It handles about 7,000 new cases each year involving more than two dozen types of cancer.

U.S. News & World Report puts Houston Methodist Hospital at No. 19 among the country’s best hospitals for cancer care, two spots below Chicago’s Northwestern Memorial Hospital. The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston sits at No. 1 on the list.

Matei’s research related to ovarian and endometrial cancer holds the potential to benefit tens of thousands of American women. The American Cancer Society estimates:

  • 21,010 women in the U.S. will be diagnosed with ovarian cancer, and 12,450 women will die from it.
  • 68,270 women in the U.S. will be diagnosed with endometrial cancer, and 14,450 women will die from it.

Matei is leaving Northwestern in the wake of widespread cuts in federal funding for medical research. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has canceled or frozen tens of millions of dollars in grants for Northwestern, the Wall Street Journal reports, and the university has been plugging the gaps with its own money.

“The university is totally keeping us on life support,” Matei told the newspaper last year. “The big question is for how long they can do this.”

According to the Wall Street Journal, Matei’s $5 million NIH grant supporting 69 cancer trials has been caught up in the federal funding chaos, so Northwestern stepped in to cover trial expenses such as nurses’ salaries and diagnostic procedures.

Trial participants include some patients with rare, incurable tumors who are undergoing experimental treatments aligned with the genetics of their condition, the newspaper says.

“It’s certainly a life-and-death situation for cancer patients on these trials,” Matei said in 2025.

Matei is among the beneficiaries of more than $15 million in grants approved February 18 by CPRIT’s board. The grants went toward recruiting five cancer researchers to institutions in Texas.

One of those grants, totaling $1.5 million, went to the University of Houston to recruit Akash Gupta, a research scientist at MIT’s Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research. The remaining grants went to recruit scientists to The University of Texas at Dallas and The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center.

Rice University lands $14M state grant to open Center for Space Technologies

on a mission

Rice University’s Space Institute soon will be home to the newly created Center for Space Technologies.

On Feb. 17, the Texas Space Commission approved a nearly $14.2 million grant for the Rice project. The Center for Space Technologies will target:

  • Research and development
  • Technology transfer and innovation
  • Statewide partnerships
  • Workforce development training
  • Space-focused education programs

The goal of the new center “is to fulfill an articulated need for research, workforce development, and industry collaboration,” said Kemah communications and marketing executive Gwen Griffin, chair of the commission.

State Rep. Greg Bonnen, a Friendswood Republican, authored the bill that set up the Texas Space Commission.

Since being authorized in 2023, the commission has funded 24 projects, with Rice and Houston-area companies accounting for nearly $75 million in grants to back space-related initiatives.

The grant to Rice brings the TSC's total investment to $150 million, fully committing the entire state appropriation from the Texas Legislature in 2023.

Other local companies that have received grants over the years include Aegis Aerospace, Axiom Space, Intuitive Machines, Starlab Space and Venus Aerospace.

The commission also awarded $7 million to Blue Origin earlier this month. See a list of the 24 awards here.

Waymo self-driving robotaxis have officially launched in Houston

Waymo has arrived

Waymo will begin dispatching its robotaxis in four more cities in Texas and Florida, expanding the territory covered by its fleet of self-driving cars to 10 major U.S. metropolitan markets.

The move into Dallas, Houston, San Antonio and Orlando, Florida, announced Tuesday, February 24, widens Waymo's early lead in autonomous driving while rival services from Tesla and the Amazon-owned Zoox are still testing their vehicles in only a few U.S. cities.

In contrast, Waymo's robotaxis already provide more than 400,000 weekly trips in the six metropolitan areas where they have been transporting passengers: Phoenix, the San Francisco Bay Area, Los Angeles, Miami, Atlanta, and Austin, Texas.

Waymo operates its ride-hailing service through its own app in all the U.S. cities except Atlanta and Austin, where its robotaxis can only be summoned through Uber's ride-hailing service.

The expansion into four more markets marks a significant step toward Waymo's goal to surpass 1 million weekly paid trips by the end of 2026. Without identifying where its robotaxis will be available next, Waymo is targeting a list of eight other cities that include Las Vegas, Washington, Detroit and Boston while signaling its first overseas availability is likely to be London.

To help pay for more robotaxis, Waymo recently raised $16 billion as part of the financial infusion that puts the value of the company at $126 billion. The valuation fueled speculation that Waymo may eventually be spun off from its corporate parent Alphabet, where it began as a secret project within Google in 2009.

Although Waymo is opening up in four more cities, its robotaxis initially will only be made available to a limited number of people with its ride-hailing app in Dallas, Houston, San Antonio and Orlando before the service will be available to all comers in those markets.

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