By September 1, Project V delivered its first order of 30,000 ventilators just 154 days after launching. Photo by AJ Mast for General Motors and Ventec

Houston-based Velentium played a key role in mobilizing thousands of ventilators in the United States at a time when the pandemic and the uncertainty around it was surmounting around the country.

The medical technology company primarily worked in code, software, and cloud-based programs up until March.

"Then we had this opportunity come up in COVID that changed everything for us," says CEO Dan Purvis.

On March 14, an article for Forbes referenced one of Velentium's long-time clients Ventec Life Systems, a manufacturer of ventilators based in Washington. In the article, their client said they could increase production of their much-needed ventilators five-fold if they only had the right resources and partners. Purvis quickly decided that he and his team at Velentium would be one of them.

Velentium first aimed to help the small factory double or triple their production.

"When we first joined the process we were just going to our client, which was a relatively young start up firm, to try to help them go from 120 to 250 [units]," Purvis says.

But then General Motors showed up. And the scale changed dramatically.

The automotive behemoth launched Project V, which would marry it's manufacturing prowess with the technical expertise of the technology and engineering companies to mass produce Ventec's VOCSN ventilator systems. By March 25, operations launched at GM's Kokomo, Indiana, powerhouse plant where they were to produce 10,000 ventilators per month in just about eight week's time.

Velentium was charged with creating 141 automated test stands to verify that every one of Project V's 10,000 units were up to FDA standards. The stands featured 27 unique test systems that monitored 14 critical subcomponents, like air flow in metering valves and oxygen blends, and ultimately approved a ventilator for use through two final tests.

"It's one thing to build [ventilators]," Purvis says. "You need to build them safely, accurately, and in a repeatable way that is going to help people. And that's what our test systems insured."

And though Velentium had created many of these systems before, they had never done so at this scale or speed. Success required around-the-clock work from the then-60-person firm and new risks, that today Purvis says were worth taking.

"I was like, 'If we really want this to work we have to jump on this like nobody's business,'" Purvis recalls. "We bought $2 million worth of parts for test systems essentially at risk. We had not gotten our negotiation with General Motors done yet. But there was no way I could wait an extra week if I had eight weeks to do it. It was kind of terrifying, but it was the right thing to do. It totally aligned with our culture of saving lives."

By September 1, Project V delivered its first order of 30,000 ventilators to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, just 154 days after launching.

Today, Velentium maintains a few team members at the Kokomo facility who run sustaining engineering. Throughout the project, Velentium added 60 team members to their staff and doubled down on manufacturing capabilities. They plan to double their production space again as they continue to place more emphasis on their manufacturing arm, which Purvis says opens up new opportunities for the firm that he hopes only continues to grow.

"One of the big goals for me as a strategic leader at the company was to make sure that pre-Project V to post-Project V the transformation that happened to our company through that period would not regress to where we were before," he says. "We had so much impact and so much growth through that time I didn't ever want to change."

He adds: "We asked the question over and over again during the first few weeks of the pandemic in March: Why not us? If I will continue to ask the question…we can accomplish major things."

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Houston biotech VC firm's portfolio cos. score $5.3M in federal funding

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Three portfolio companies of Houston venture capital firm First Bight Ventures have received a combined $5.25 million from the U.S. Defense Department’s Distributed Bioindustrial Manufacturing Program.

“The allocation of funds by the federal government will be critical in helping grow biomanufacturing capacity,” Veronica Breckenridge (née Wu), founder of First Bight, says in a news release. “We are very proud to represent three dynamic companies that are awardees of this competitive and widely praised program.”

The three companies that were awarded Defense Department funds are:

  • Hayward, California-based Visolis, received $2.25 million to plan a facility for production of a chemical that can be transformed into rocket propellants, explosive binders, and sustainable aviation fuel.
  • Alameda, California-based Industrial Microbes received $1.55 million to plan a facility for converting ethanol feedstock into acrylic acid. This acid is a key component used in coatings, adhesives, sealants, lubricants, corrosion inhibitors, and wound dressings.
  • San Diego-based Algenesis received $1.5 million to plan and develop a facility that’ll produce diisocyanates, which are chemical building blocks used to make polyurethane products.

“This award is a testament to our commitment to advancing sustainable materials and will enable us to contribute to both national security and industrial resilience. Our planned facility represents a key step towards securing a domestic supply of critical components for polyurethanes,” says Stephen Mayfield, CEO of Algenesis.

Texas grocer H-E-B finally rolls out digital tap-to-pay services

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Texas' favorite grocery store has some good news for shoppers who have a habit of forgetting their wallets. H-E-B is starting a phased rollout for digital tap-to-pay services, starting in San Antonio before spreading to the rest of the chain's stores.

The rollout began Monday, October 7. A release says it'll take "about a week" to spread to all stores in the region before making it ways across Texas. Although it is not known which stores will add the service on what date, the rollout includes all H-E-B stores, including Mi Tienda, H-E-B's Mexican grocery store that has locations in Houston.

With tap to pay, shoppers will finally be able to use smartphone-based systems such as Apple Pay, Samsung Pay, and Google Pay, as well as tapping a physical card.

Payments can be made with those apps, or "digital wallets," at cash registers and self-checkout lanes, as well as restaurants and pharmacies within H-E-B stores. They won't be accepted right away at H-E-B fuel pumps, but customers can use them to pay for gas if they bring their phones to the fuel station payment window.

This isn't exactly cutting-edge technology; Google Wallet launched in 2011, leading the market, and was followed by Apple Pay in 2014. But it's not ubiquitous either. In 2023, a poll by Forbes Advisor found that barely more than half of respondents used digital wallets more than traditional forms of payment.

H-E-B is on a bit of a payment revolutionizing kick, also launching a debit card in 2022 and a partnership in August of 2024 with the H-E-B-owned delivery service Favor for its fastest order fulfillment yet. Central Market and Joe V’s Smart Shop, two other H-E-B brands, also recently launched tap to pay.

“At H-E-B, we’re always exploring a broad range of technologies to enhance how customers shop and pay for products,” H-E-B vice president Ashwin Nathan said in a statement. “This has been one of the most requested services we have received from our customers and partners, and we are excited to now make this popular technology available at all our H-E-B locations.”

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This article originally ran on CultureMap.