Houston investors back Austin software startup in $3.25M seed round

money moves

An Austin-based energy software company just scored funding from Houston investors. Photo via Getty Images

Houston-based investment firm Goose Capital led a $3.25 million round of seed funding revealed recently by Austin-based cleantech software company P6 Technologies.

Other participants in the round are Houston-based investment firms Artemis Energy Partners, Tupper Lake Partners, and Veritec Ventures. The seed round represents the first outside funding for P6, which maintains an office in Houston.

In conjunction with the seed funding:

  • Artemis founder and CEO Bobby Tudor has joined P6’s board of directors. He is an investor in Goose Capital.
  • Paal Kibsgaard, managing partner of Veritec, also has joined the P6 board. Kibsgaard is former chairman and CEO of Houston-based oilfield services company Schlumberger, which now does business as SLB.

Joe Berti, CEO of P6, says Kibsgaard’s “unparalleled experience” will benefit his company.

“Veritec’s strategic vision and active support of energy transition solutions align perfectly with our goals, and I am confident their contribution will be instrumental in shaping our future success,” Berti says in a news release.

Berti is former chief product officer of IBM’s sustainability software unit.

P6, founded in 2022, sells enterprise software to businesses in the energy, transportation fuel, and petrochemical sectors. The startup’s software for product lifecycle assessment enables measurement of the product-level intensity of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions as energy companies try to achieve sustainability goals.

Tudor applauds P6 for helping fossil fuel-anchored companies reduce GHG emissions.

“Energy is the sector that needs a solution like P6 the most,” says Tudor. “P6 has the right approach and is going to make a step-change improvement to how product-level carbon intensity and GHG emissions are tracked today.”

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This article originally ran on EnergyCapital.

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Angel investors, corporate venture, and more options for Houston startups outside of the traditional venture capital model.

Houston innovator shares investment opportunities outside traditional VC model

guest column

In my last column about tapping into Houston's venture capital ecosystem, I identified the 31 venture capitalists in Houston. By most measures Houston is around 0.5 to 1 percent of US venture capital activity, and that low volume is reflected in the limited number of venture capitalists locally.

But outside of venture capital funds, founders often pull money from other places including angel investors, seed funds and corporate venture capital arms as well as cross-over investors. I got asked this morning by a founder at the Ion, where’s the rest of the list?

Houston has five active corporate venture capital funds, or CVCs, with at least one senior investment professional in Houston with and one with headquarters here (Chevron). A short list of the key investment professionals in the group includes:

There are maybe half a dozen other corporates In Houston that organize around a fund structure and governance of some type, and have been actively investing in venture capital rounds with professionals in Houston. Equinor, a long time corporate investor, Baker Hughes which relaunched a CVC effort in 2021, Mitsubishi has investment professionals in Houston, and Williams which launched a new CVC effort in 2022, as well as Occidental, BHP, and Waste Management which had active CVC efforts in the past that have gone a bit on ice, as did ConocoPhillips, P66 and Schlumberger. Two larger private equity funds Ara Partners and Quantum are active in venture capital deals, but in a more mixed model. This universe would probably add another 30 to 40 Houston based active investment professionals.

The city also has around 10 angel networks, pre-seed funds, pre-seed investors, and accelerators that write checks, typically in the $100K to $1 million range, but either without committed venture funds in an acceleration model, at varying degrees of active, scale, model, and type.

Layering them in no particular order the Houston universe expands by another dozen full time or mostly full time professionals, and a few dozen angels. I’ve included their main contacts below:

These are certainly not large numbers for a city our size, and commensurate with the size of the Houston startup market. But while the cupboard may be a bit bare, it’s not empty. As a founder chasing money, that’s about 75 to 100 names to go chase, with probably double that in active or semi-active angel investors investing through these pools.

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Neal Dikeman is a venture capitalist and seven-time startup co-founder investing out of Energy Transition Ventures.

Auburn University's SwiftSku took first place in this year's virtually held Rice Business Plan Competition, but it was the second place company that went home with over half a million in cash and investment prizes. Photo via rice.edu

Over $1.4M in prizes awarded at Rice University's student startup competition

RBPC 2021

In its 21st year, the Rice Business Plan Competition hosted 54 student-founded startups from all over the world — its largest batch of companies to date — and doled out over $1.4 million in cash and investment prizes at the week-long virtual competition.

RBPC, which is put on by the Rice Alliance for Technology and Entrepreneurship, took place Tuesday, April 6, to Friday, April 9 this year. Just like 2020, RBPC was virtually held. The competition announced the 54 participating startups last month, and coordinated the annual elevator pitches, a semi-finals round, wildcard round and live final pitches. The contestants also received virtual networking and mentoring.

Earlier this week, Rice Alliance announced the seven student-led startups that then competed in the finals. From this pack, the judges awarded the top prizes. Here's how the finalists placed and what won:

  • SwiftSku from Auburn University, point of sales technology for convenience stores that allows for real time analytics, won first place and claimed the $350,000 grand prize from Goose Capital. The company also won the $50,000 Business Angel Minority Association Prize, the $500 Best Digital Elevator Pitch Prize from Mercury Fund, and the $500 Third Place Anbarci Family People's Choice prize, bringing the company's grand total in cash and investment prizes to $401,000. The company also won the CFO Consulting Prize, a $25,000 in-kind award.
  • AgZen from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a pesticide alternative spray and formulation technology company, won the second place $100,000 investment prize (awarded by Finger Interests, Anderson Family Fund, Greg Novak, and Tracy Druce). The startup also won a $300,000 Owl Investment Prize, the $100,000 Houston Angel Network Prize, the $500 Best Energy Elevator Pitch Prize from Mercury Fund, and the $1,500 Third Place Anbarci Family People's Choice prize, bringing the company's grand total in cash and investment prizes to $502,000. The company also won the $30,000 in-kind Polsinelli Energy Prize.
  • FibreCoat GmbH from RWTH Aachen University, a startup with patented spinning technology for the production of inexpensive high-performance composite fibers, won the third place $50,000 investment prize (also awarded by Finger Interests, Anderson Family Fund, Greg Novak, and Tracy Druce). The company also won the $100,000 TiE Houston Angels Prize and the $500 Best Hard Tech Elevator Pitch Prize from Mercury Fund, bringing the company's grand total in cash and investment prizes to $150,500.
  • Candelytics from Harvard University, a startup building the digital infrastructure for 3-D data, won the fourth place $5,000 prize.
  • OYA FEMTECH Apparel from UCLA, an athletic wear company that designs feminine health-focused clothing, won the fifth place $5,000 prize. The company also won the $5,000 Eagle Investors Prize, the $25,000 Urban Capital Network Prize, and the $1,000 Second Place Anbarci Family People's Choice prize, bringing the company's grand total in cash and investment prizes to $36,000.
  • LFAnt Medical from McGill University , an innovative and tech-backed STI testing company, won the sixth place $5,000 prize and the $20,000 Johnson and Johnson Innovation Prize, bringing the company's grand total in cash and investment prizes to $25,000.
  • SimpL from the University of Pittsburgh, an AI-backed fitness software company, won the seventh place $5,000 prize. The company also won the $25,000 Spirit of Entrepreneurship Prize from the Pearland Economic Development Corp., bringing the company's grand total in cash and investment prizes to $30,000.

Some of the competition's participating startups outside of the seven finalists won monetary and in-kind prizes. Here's a list of those.

  • Mercury Fund's Elevator Pitch Prizes also included:
    • Best Life Science $500 Prize to Blue Comet Medical Solutions from Northwestern University
    • Best Consumer $500 Prize to EasyFlo from the University of New Mexico
    • Best Overall $1,000 prize to Anthro Energy from Stanford University
  • The Palo Alto Software Outstanding LivePlan Pitch $3,000 Prize went to LiRA Inc. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
  • The OFW Law FDA Regulatory Strategy Prize, a $20,000 in-kind award went to Paldara Inc. from Oklahoma State University.
  • The Silver Fox Mentoring Prize, which included $20,000 in kind prizes to three winners selected Ai-Ris from Texas A&M University, BruxAway from the University of Texas, and Karkinex from Rice University as recipients.
  • The first, second, and third place winners also each received the legal service prize from Baker Botts for a total of $20,000 in-kind award.
  • The Courageous Women Entrepreneurship Prize from nCourage — a $50,000 investment prize — went to Shelly Xu Design from Harvard University.
  • The SWPDC Pediatric Device Prize — usually a $50,000 investment divided its prize to two winners to receive $25,000 each
    • Blue Comet Medical Solutions from Northwestern University
    • Neurava from Purdue University
  • TMC Innovation Healthcare Prize awarded a $100,000 investment prize and admission into its accelerator to ArchGuard from Duke University
  • The Artemis Fund awarded its $100,000 investment prize to Kit Switch from Stanford University
The awards program concluded with a plan to host the 22nd annual awards in 2022 in person.

If you missed the virtual programming, each event was hosted live on YouTube and the videos are now available on the Rice Alliance's page.

Syzygy Plasmonics has raised $23 million thanks to international support. Photos via plasmonics.tech

Houston alternative energy startup raises $23M series B with global support

money moves

A Houston startup founded based off research coming out of Rice University has closed its series B funding, the company announced this week.

Founded in 2017, Syzygy Plasmonics is a chemical company developing a photocatalyst-powered hydrogen fuel cell technology that produces a cheaper source of energy that releases fewer carbon emissions. As of this week, the company has $23 million more to fund its scaling and grow its team thanks to the closing of its series B financing led by Hong Kong-based Horizons Venture. Equinor Ventures, a new investor, also joined in on the round, along with previous seed and series A investors including The Engine, GOOSE Capital, and Evok Innovations.

"With renewable electricity as an energy source, our technology is cleaner, and because of the stability and activity of our photocatalysts, we can drive dozens of possibilities, tuning reactions that produce different chemicals," says Trevor Best, Syzygy Plasmonics' co-founder and CEO, in a news release. "Our initial product will focus on eliminating emissions from hydrogen production, transforming the industrial process involved in making semiconductors, LEDs and metals. Our system will also enable industries that are consumers of hydrogen fuel cells, like fuel cell vehicles."

The hydrogen-fueled technology originated out of research done over two decades by two Rice University professors, Naomi Halas and Peter Nordlander and further developed by the company's co-founder and CTO, Suman Khatiwada. The technology has the ability to both lower costs and emissions at industrial plants. According to the release, Syzygy's first product focused on hydrogen and the technology has the potential to cut the cost of zero emission hydrogen in half, when compared to other alternatives such as electrolysis.

"There are rules in chemical engineering, and you can't break them, but we follow them in a different way," CEO Trevor Best previously told InnovationMap. "What we're doing is fundamentally different. We're using light instead of heat to drive chemical reactions."

Currently, Syzygy employs 26 people and plans to double its workforce in the next year in order to launch its first full-size, commercial-ready chemical reactors in 2022.

In August of 2019, Syzygy raised its $5.8 million series A and secured Department of Energy ARPA-E and National Science Foundation SBIR Program grants.

"The keys to unlock the potential of hydrogen energy lie within production cost reduction and safety enhancements. Syzygy uses a photocatalysis process to produce H2 on premises, therefore mitigating risks of explosion imposed by the transportation of liquid hydrogen while lowering production costs to increase overall energy efficiency. This technology will be applicable to a wide-range of use-cases, enabling a faster path toward zero-emissions," says Patrick Poon of Horizons Ventures, who is also a new board member at Syzygy.

The international fundraise also attracted interest from Norway-based Equinor's venture arm, which has operations in more than 30 countries.

"We have announced our ambition to become a net-zero energy company by 2050 and in order for society at large to meet its climate goals it will require new solutions and technologies. We are pleased to announce the investment in Syzygy as one potential contributor to help the energy industry reduce emissions as part of our effort to shape the future of energy," says Gareth Burns, head of Equinor Ventures, in the release.

This week's roundup of Houston innovators includes Niloufar Molavi of Central Houston Inc., Dan Purvis of Velentium, and Chris Staffel of Goose Capital. Courtesy photos

3 Houston innovators to know this week

who's who

Editor's note: In the week's roundup of Houston innovators to know, I'm introducing you to three innovators — each either new to their role or with a bit of acquistion news.

Niloufar Molavi, board chair at Central Houston Inc.

Niloufar Molavi will lead Central Houston Inc.'s board this year — and she's got fostering innovation on her to-do list. Photo courtesy of CHI

Last week, Nilofar Molavi assumed the role of board chair for Central Houston. She leads PwC's Global energy practice and has served on the CHI board since 2011 and chairs the organization's innovation committee. CHI was among the partners behind the Downtown Launchpad, a 17,000-square-foot innovation hub, which had its grand opening last fall.

"With the fall 2020 opening of Downtown Launchpad, we have deepened our investment in innovation, which we hope will garner long-term results and economic vitality for downtown as well as the Houston region at large," she continues. "We look forward to developing bridge programs with area universities and organizations and leveraging existing resources to bring more high-tech prospects to our central city." Read more.

Dan Purvis, CEO of Velentium

A Houston company has made a strategic acquisition. Photo courtesy of Velentium

Houston-based Velentium, which specializes in the design and manufacturing of medical devices announced that it has acquired Texas company Oasis Testing, a designer of automated test systems for the energy and manufacturing industries.

"Despite the immense challenges facing the business community in 2020, last year was a monumental year of growth for our firm, and we're pleased to start 2021 building upon our world-class team of technical experts," says Dan Purvis, CEO of Velentium, in a news release. "Oasis Testing has been a trusted partner for the last five years and shares in our commitment to solving clients' most complex challenges to change lives for a better world. We're incredibly excited to welcome them to the Velentium family and expand our business more deeply into energy and manufacturing."

Purvis will lead the new combined company as CEO. Read more.

Chris Staffel, managing director at Goose Capital

Goose Capital recently named its new managing director. Photo courtesy of Chris Staffel

Houston-based investment group Goose Capital Inc. named Chris Staffel as managing director — along with Jeff Smisek as the firm's president and Jay Collins as chair of the board of directors.

A serial entrepreneur and investor in over 30 startups, Staffel joins Goose to lead day-to-day operations and drive new investment opportunities.

"It is an honor to join the team at Goose Capital and work alongside experienced industry leaders," Staffel says in the release. "I look forward to leveraging my entrepreneurial experience to help the start-ups in which we invest, while strategically identifying early stage investment opportunities." Read more.

Goose Capital recently named its new managing director, president, and board chair. Photo courtesy

Houston investment group names new leadership

movers & shakers

A Houston-based investment group has announced three new leadership changes to its organization to start of the new year.

Goose Capital Inc. named Chris Staffel as managing director, along with Jeff Smisek as the firm's president and Jay Collins as chair of the board of directors. The three appointments are effective as of January 1.

Smisek, former chairman, CEO, and president of United Continental Holdings Inc., has been a member investor with Goose but now assumes this leadership role. He serves as president of private investment company Flight Partners Capital, as well as on the board of directors for Finch Therapeutics Group Inc., Lantha Inc., and Molecular Match Inc.

"I look forward to leading Goose Capital as we help early stage companies and their founders develop their products, grow their companies, and create value," says Smisek in a news release.

Collins formerly lead Oceaneering International as CEO and president. He currently serves on the board of directors of the company as well as on the boards of Murphy Oil Company and Pason Systems Inc. Prior to becoming chair of the board of Goose Capital, Collins was its president.

A serial entrepreneur and investor in over 30 startups, Staffel joins Goose to lead day-to-day operations and drive new investment opportunities. She has been a founding member of three startup energy companies with an aggregate exit valuation of $1.38 billion, according to the release, as well as formerly leading Houston-based digital health company, Patients We Share, as COO. Her appointment to the firm follows former director Samantha Lewis's move to Mercury Fund.

"It is an honor to join the team at Goose Capital and work alongside experienced industry leaders," Staffel says in the release. "I look forward to leveraging my entrepreneurial experience to help the start-ups in which we invest, while strategically identifying early stage investment opportunities."

Goose Capital — previously known as The GOOSE Society of Texas — was founded 15 years ago and invests about $10 million per year in early-stage companies. Last summer, the organization rebranded with a new website representing a new phase for the investment group.

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Houston medtech startup clears FDA approval for new surgical tool

precision surgery

Houston-based Prana Surgical will soon bring a new electrosurgical tool to operating rooms around the country. The Prana System officially cleared U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval earlier this month.

"Receiving FDA clearance for the Prana System represents a defining milestone for our company," Joanna Nathan, CEO and co-founder of Prana Surgical, said in a news release. "Surgeons today are increasingly focused on achieving precise outcomes while minimizing disruption to healthy tissue. The Prana System was designed to support that shift by integrating targeting and excision into a single, streamlined tool."

Prana Surgical began as Prana Thoracic in 2022. Back then, the company primarily focused on developing screening tools for lung cancer diagnosis. It raised $6 million in series A funding rounds in 2023 and 2024 before transitioning to broader surgical needs in 2025.

The Prana System is a minimally invasive, image-guided, single-use tissue extraction tool designed to retrieve samples without damaging healthy tissue. The tool is still designed with the respiratory system in mind, helping Prana in the fight against lung cancer and other thoracic diseases.

Reducing the impact of tissue extraction via electrosurgery and enhanced image scanning can significantly reduce complications. The Prana System combines localization and tissue-cutting capabilities in one, which keeps surgeons from having to swap out components during a procedure, making for a smoother process. It can core, cut and feel blood vessels on the way toward the intended target, giving surgeons greater control over tissue preservation.

"Electrosurgery is foundational to modern surgery, but there is still opportunity to improve how energy-based tools are applied in minimally invasive settings," Nathan added. "Our goal is to introduce a new class of image-guided surgical tools that enable more precise intervention across a range of procedures."

The company projects sales of $7.5 billion from the Prana System in the United States, estimating that 2.5 million surgical modules will be able to use the new tool. While starting out focused on biopsies, the company plans to evolve the system into other procedures, such as ablation, in the future. It is also planning for a controlled U.S. clinical rollout as it moves toward commercialization

Texas still ranks as No. 1 in U.S. for inbound moves, but growth dips

by the numbers

Texas continues to be the country’s No. 1 magnet for newcomers from other states, giving a boost to the state’s economy. However, Texas’ appeal weakened in 2024 compared with the previous year, due in large part to spiking home prices.

An analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data by self-storage platform StorageCafe shows Texas saw net interstate migration of 76,000 people in 2024. Texas’ net interstate migration dropped nearly 50 percent from 2023, according to the analysis. Net migration refers to the number of incoming residents minus the number of outgoing residents.

California remained the top source of newcomers for Texas, sending nearly 77,000 residents to the Lone Star State in 2024, the analysis says. Florida ranked second, followed by New York, Colorado and Illinois.

“These trends reveal Texas’ continued pull from both high-cost coastal markets and other large Sun Belt states, resulting in a mix of affordability-driven and job-driven relocation,” StorageCafe says.

Putting a damper on the influx of new residents: a roughly 124 percent surge in Texas home prices over the past decade, according to StorageCafe.

“While the state remains significantly more affordable than California, its top feeder state, the once-wide pricing gap has narrowed,” says StorageCafe. “For many movers, Texas is still a relative bargain, but no longer an undisputed one.”

Nonetheless, Texas keeps attracting young, highly educated people, which bodes well for the state’s long-term economic outlook, StorageCafe says. More than half of new arrivals to Texas in 2024 held at least a bachelor’s degree, and the age of newcomers averaged 32.

Where are most of these young, highly educated newcomers settling?

Lloyd Potter, former Texas state demographer, tells StorageCafe that population growth in Texas is happening most rapidly in suburban “ring counties” at the expense of slowing growth in urban cores. Ring counties are on the outskirts of major metro areas.

“Many people are moving from urban cores to suburban rings seeking lower costs, newer housing, better schools, and more space,” Potter says. “Typically, a move to a suburban county will be within commuting or hybrid‑commuting distance of major metro economies.”

Artemis II makes historic call to space station with help from Houston Mission Control

History in the making

Still aglow from their triumphant lunar flyby, the Artemis II astronauts made more history Tuesday, April 7: calling their friends aboard the International Space Station hundreds of thousands of miles away as they headed home from the moon.

It was the first moonship-to-spaceship radio linkup ever. NASA's Apollo crews had no off-the-planet company back in the 1960s and 1970s, the last time humanity set sail for deep space.

"We have been waiting for this like you can’t imagine,” Artemis II commander Reid Wiseman called out.

For Christina Koch on Artemis II and Jessica Meir aboard the space station, it marked a joyous space reunion despite being 230,000 miles (370,000 kilometers) apart. The two teamed up for the world's first all-female spacewalk in 2019 outside the orbiting lab.

Koch told her “astro-sister” that she'd hoped to meet up with her again in space “but I never thought it would be like this — it's amazing.”

“I'm so happy that we are back in space together,” Meir replied, “even if we are a few miles apart.”

Houston's Mission Control arranged the cosmic chitchat between the four lunar travelers and the space station's three NASA and one French residents.

Koch described being awe-struck by not just the beauty of Earth, “but how much blackness there was around it.”

“It just made it even more special. It truly emphasized how alike we are, how the same thing keeps every single person on planet Earth alive,” she told the space station crew. “The specialness and preciousness of that really is emphasized” when viewing the home planet from the moon.

By late Tuesday afternoon, the Artemis II astronauts had beamed back more than 50 gigabytes' worth of pictures and other data from the previous day's lunar rendezvous, which set a new distance record for humanity. The highlight: an Earthset photo reminiscent of Apollo 8's Earthrise shot from 1968.

"While they are inspirational and, I think, allow all of us to really feel a little bit of what they were feeling, there's also a lot of science hidden inside of those images," said Mission Control's lead lunar scientist Kelsey Young. “The conversations and the science lessons learned are just beginning."

During a debriefing with Young, the astronauts recounted how they spotted a cascade of pinpricks of light on the lunar surface from impacting cosmic debris. The flashes lasted mere milliseconds and coincided by chance with Monday evening's total solar eclipse.

Young said it was too soon to know whether the crew witnessed an actual meteor shower or more random, run-of-the-mill micrometeoroid hits. Either way, there were “audible screams of delight” in the science operations center, she said.

Koch described being awe-struck by not just the beauty of Earth, “but how much blackness there was around it.”

“It just made it even more special. It truly emphasized how alike we are, how the same thing keeps every single person on planet Earth alive,” she told the space station crew. “The specialness and preciousness of that really is emphasized” when viewing the home planet from the moon.

The first lunar explorers since Apollo 17 in 1972, Wiseman and his crew are aiming for a splashdown off the San Diego coast on Friday to wrap up the nearly 10-day test flight. The recovery ship USS John P. Murtha left port Tuesday for the target zone.

It sets the stage for next year's Artemis III, a lunar lander docking demo in orbit around Earth. Artemis IV will follow in 2028 with two astronauts attempting to land near the lunar south pole.

As for the Orion capsule’s pesky potty, Mission Control assured the astronauts that no maintenance was required Tuesday. The toilet has been on-and-off limits to the crew ever since last week’s launch, prompting them to rely on a backup bag-and-funnel system for urinating.

NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman told the crew following the lunar flyby Monday night: “We definitely have to fix some of the plumbing” ahead of the next Artemis mission. Engineers suspect a clogged filter in the overboard flushing system.

Aside from the toilet and other relatively minor matters, the mission has gone well, Isaacman noted at a news conference Tuesday, “but I'll breathe easier when we get through reentry and everybody's under chutes and in the water.”

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