Experts: Houston's VC ecosystem has set the foundation — now we need scale

guest column

Fervo Energy's recent IPO is a signal of where Houston's venture ecosystem stands—and where it can go. Photo via Pexels

Fervo Energy went public earlier this summer. The Houston geothermal company priced its IPO at $27 per share, raised $1.89 billion, and opened the next morning at a market capitalization north of $10 billion. By most measures, it is the largest venture-backed cleantech IPO in history and an unambiguous win for Houston. It’s also a useful moment to look at where Houston's venture ecosystem stands and where it can go. The highlight: Houston's venture ecosystem has real foundations and, with increased company formation activity, can grow into the scale our city's ambitions deserve.

A Houston energy story in the national recovery

The recent uptick in Houston venture activity follows national trends. U.S. venture deal count contracted roughly 22 percent from its 2021 peak through 2024 before rebounding to about 16,700 rounds in 2025. Houston's 23 percent increase in VC funding from 2023 to 2024 is part of a national recovery of comparable magnitude over the same time window.

The energy sector is where Houston exhibits unique trends—and where the story turns clearly positive. (Houston's strong health and space sectors deserve their own separate consideration.) By deal count, energy-related rounds have accounted for 15 to 20 percent of Houston activity, roughly consistent over the past few years.

By capital, energy's share surged from about 14 percent in 2023 to over 60 percent in 2025, driven by a small number of large Houston-headquartered rounds, primarily in geothermal and related technologies. Fervo is the obvious anchor, but Sage Geosystems, Quaise Energy, Zeta Energy, Vaulted Deep, Applied Carbon and Mariana Minerals have all closed meaningful rounds. Houston is concentrated and accelerating as an energy capital market, an invaluable position to build upon.

From foundation to scale

The institutional pieces are in place. Greentown Labs, Activate, the Ion and others have built sector-specialized infrastructure most cities would struggle to assemble. Fervo itself is an alum of both Activate and Greentown Labs. Mercury Fund closed its $160 million Fund V, its largest ever. Houston Angel Network, GOOSE Capital, Fathom Fund, and broader pre-seed and seed capital coverage are here. The Houston $10 million-plus Series A list now includes 40 rounds since 2021, which break roughly into two eras. While 2021 to 2022 was biotech-heavy, with companies like Sporos Bioventures, RadioMedix, Cellenkos and Coya Therapeutics, 2024 to 2025 has tilted clearly toward energy, climate, and critical minerals, with Vaulted Deep, Applied Carbon, Mariana Minerals, Sage Geosystems and Ignis H2 Energy among them.

What’s less developed is the volume of seed-stage companies flowing into that capital. Imagine a dozen more Fervos coming out of that infrastructure over the next decade, each generating jobs, recycled founder capital, and the next wave of operators and angel investors. That is the kind of opportunity Houston has within reach if we build the company-formation pipeline to feed it. To be relevant on the national stage as a venture market, and to drive an economy the size of Houston's into the 2030s, the city needs to be doing closer to 20 Series A rounds per month rather than per year. That throughput implies roughly 1,000 seed rounds per year, feeding the funnel at a 20 percent to 30 percent graduation rate. Reaching such throughput depends on how many new founders Houston produces and how quickly our innovation ecosystem can help them achieve lift-off.

Houston in context

The comparative picture brings the scaling challenge into focus. Between 2021 and 2024, Houston-area startups closed between 126 and 153 disclosed venture rounds per year, against a national count between 9,854 and 14,125. That places Houston at a little over 1 percent of the U.S. deal count. For comparison, Austin ran about three times Houston's deal count each year.

At the Series A level, Houston closed between 12 and 24 rounds in any given year. The median Houston Series A across the period was about $10.7 million, compared with $15.4 million in San Francisco. Houston founders are raising fewer and smaller Series A rounds than founders in peer metros, which points directly to where Houston has the most room to grow.

The unicorn picture tells the same story. From 2021 through 2025, the U.S. produced 590 venture-backed unicorns. Four were Houston-based: Solugen and Axiom Space in 2021, Cart.com in 2023, and Fervo Energy in 2024. Adding HighRadius from 2020 brings Houston's all-time total to five. Austin added 19 over the same five-year window. The path from here is to make Houston's entries on lists like these less the exception and more the rule.

Where this leads

Houston has a real opportunity to become the deepest, most credible energy and climate capital market in the country, with the company formation, talent and operator density to support it. The data shows the foundation is already in place. Fervo, Solugen and the growing roster of energy-adjacent Series A graduates are proof. Fervo's IPO is the first of what should be many. Houston has not had a venture-backed cleantech liquidity event of this scale before, and the city now has one to reference, recruit against and build on. With increased company formation at the seed and pre-seed stages, a Fervo-scale outcome need not be a generational event in Houston, but instead, it can become part of a chain reaction powering the city's economy.

---

Stephanie T. Schmidt, PhD, is the founder of a stealth startup, a Venture Fellow at Energy Transition Ventures, and an Executive MBA candidate at Rice University's Jones Graduate School of Business. Lawson Gow is the Chief Operating Officer of Greentown Labs. The full Houston VC landscape report is available at Energy Transition Ventures and CleanTech.Org.

Sources: Crunchbase, PitchBook-NVCA, Carta
From Your Site Articles
Sandip Bordoloi and Sunny Zhang, founders of True Leap Inc. Photo via trueleapinc.com.

Houston edtech company closes oversubscribed $3M seed round

fresh funding

Houston-based edtech company TrueLeap Inc. closed an oversubscribed seed round last month.

The $3.3 million round was led by Joe Swinbank Family Limited Partnership, a venture capital firm based in Houston. Gamper Ventures, another Houston firm, also participated with additional strategic partners.

TrueLeap reports that the funding will support the large-scale rollout of its "edge AI, integrated learning systems and last-mile broadband across underserved communities."

“The last mile is where most digital transformation efforts break down,” Sandip Bordoloi, CEO and president of TrueLeap, said in a news release. “TrueLeap was built to operate where bandwidth is limited, power is unreliable, and institutions need real systems—not pilots. This round allows us to scale infrastructure that actually works on the ground.”

True Leap works to address the digital divide in education through its AI-powered education, workforce systems and digital services that are designed for underserved and low-connectivity communities.

The company has created infrastructure in Africa, India and rural America. Just this week, it announced an agreement with the City of Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of Congo to deploy a digital twin platform for its public education system that will allow provincial leaders to manage enrollment, staffing, infrastructure and performance with live data.

“What sets TrueLeap apart is their infrastructure mindset,” Joe Swinbank, General Partner at Joe Swinbank Family Limited Partnership, added in the news release. “They are building the physical and digital rails that allow entire ecosystems to function. The convergence of edge compute, connectivity, and services makes this a compelling global infrastructure opportunity.”

TrueLeap was founded by Bordoloi and Sunny Zhang and developed out of Born Global Ventures, a Houston venture studio focused on advancing immigrant-founded technology. It closed an oversubscribed pre-seed in 2024.

Despite its VC growth over the past few years, Houston startups saw a setback in funding in 2023. Photo via Getty Images

Report: Houston sees significant dip in VC activity in 2023

by the numbers

The amount of venture capital pumped into Houston-area companies shriveled in 2023, dropping to its lowest level since the pandemic year of 2020.

The latest PitchBook-NVCA Venture Monitor shows Houston-area businesses collected nearly $1.5 billion in venture capital in 2023, down from more than $2.2 billion in 2022 and over $2.6 billion in 2021. The amount of venture capital fell below $1 billion in both 2019 and 2020.

Houston-based Axiom Space accounted for the biggest chunk of the region’s VC haul in 2023 — a series C round worth $350 million. According to InnovationMap reporting, other local startups leading the way last year in VC were:

Here are Houston area’s full VC numbers for the past five years, according to the PitchBook-NVCA report:

  • 2023 — $1.478 billion
  • 2022 — $2.207 billion
  • 2021 — $2.625 billion
  • 2020 — $718.94 million
  • 2019 — $950.76 million

Across the country last year, $170.6 billion was invested in private companies, says the report — down $71.6 billion from 2022 and roughly half the sum invested in 2021.

In the report, Bobby Franklin, president and CEO of NVCA, notes that while the continued drop in U.S. venture capital activity “does not lend itself to optimism, it would be a mistake to declare the market in crisis. Rather, the market has changed. From interest rates to foreign conflict, the world looks very different than it did two years ago, and a new set of problems needs to be solved for.”

Here are the 10 Houston startups that closed venture capital investment in the fourth quarter of last year. Photo via Getty Images

10 Houston startups start 2023 with fresh venture capital funding

money moves

Houston startups saw a busy last quarter when it came to funding in 2022. From seed to series C, 10 Houston startups wrapped up the year with investment round closings.

In case you missed some of these headlines, InnovationMap has rounded up these 10 deals based on previous reporting. Scroll through to see which Houston startups are catching the eyes — and cashing the checks — of investors.

Houston-based virtual reality startup raises $3.2M in first outside capital round

VR training startup, HTX Labs, has raised funding from an outside investor for the first time. Courtesy of HTX Labs

HTX Labs, a Houston-based company that designs extended reality training for military and business purposes, announced last week that it has raised its first outside capital.

The company has received a $3.2 million investment from Cypress Growth Capital. Founded in 2017, HTX Labs — developer of the EMPACT Immersive Learning Platform — has been granted funding from the Department of Defense as well as grown its client base of commercial Enterprises. The platform uses virtual and extended reality that "enables organizations to rapidly create, deploy, measure, and sustain cost-effective, secure, and centralized immersive training programs, all within engaging, fully interactive virtual environments," per a news release.

“We have been looking to secure outside capital to accelerate the growth of our EMPACT platform and customer base but we hadn’t found the right partner who provided an investment vehicle that matched our needs,“ says HTX Labs CEO Scott Schneider in the release. “We found everything we were looking for in Cypress Growth Capital. They have a non-dilutive funding model that aligns with our capital expectations and have the level of experience that really makes this smart money." Read more.

Houston-based travel tech startup raises nearly $1M to continue expansion

A Houston company has raised additional funding as it grows its encrypted lodging booking platform. Photo via Gustavo Fring/Pexels

A travel booking technology company that's looking to alleviate some of the stresses of finding and making hotel reservations has raised additional seed funding.

Houston-based Pinktada has raised additional funding to the tune of $975,000. Ireland-based Selenean Capital contributed to the seed funding round, joining the company's previous investor True Global Ventures 4 Plus, which has invested $2 million to date. According to Crunchbase data, the latest investment brings the company's total to $3.9 million.

“Selenean Capital’s approach to partnership is identifying real world future needs and then working relentlessly to achieve those goals," says Davin Browne, Selenean’s CEO, in a news release. "Pinktada encapsulates this perfectly with a transformational approach to the hotel booking model built around a brilliant team. We look forward to the partnership and journey with them." Read more.

Houston microgrid tech company announces $150 investment

Houston-based VoltaGrid provides small-scale, self-contained microgrids that can operate independently of major power grids or in tandem with other microgrids. Photo via voltagrid.com

VoltaGrid, a Bellaire-based startup that specializes in distributed power generation via microgrids, has hauled in $150 million in equity funding.

Founded in 2020, VoltaGrid provides small-scale, self-contained microgrids that can operate independently of major power grids or in tandem with other microgrids. VoltaGrid’s product consists of natural gas engines, portable energy storage, natural gas processing and grid power connectivity.

Investors in the $150 million round include the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPP Investments), Longbow Capital, Walter Ventures, and Pilot Company (operator of more than 800 retail and fueling locations in the U.S. and Canada). The $150 million round comes less than a year after VoltaGrid announced a $100 million round featuring the same investors. Read more.

Houston SaaS company raises $15M series B, announces latest release

Houston-based GoCo.io has raised fresh funding and launched the latest version of its platform. Courtesy of GoCo

A Houston startup that is optimizing human resource operations for small businesses has raised fresh funding from an Austin-based venture capital investor.

GoCo.io raised $15 million in September in a funding round led by ATX Venture Partners. Founded in 2015, the company has raised $27.5 million to date, including its $7 million series A in 2019.

The fresh funding will be used to continue expanding on the company's software services operations and upgrades to its product, which is is modernizing HR, benefits, and payroll.

“We believe that GoCo is the company best positioned to provide HR departments at SMBs with the most flexible employee management software,” says Chris Shonk, general partner at ATX Venture Partners, in a news release. “In a crowded marketplace, GoCo clearly rises to the top with its ease-of-use, flexibility and unparalleled customization. Read more.

Houston tech startup raises $3.5M following industry expansion

Rivalry Tech's co-founders — Marshall Law and Aaron Knape — share news of the company's latest round of investment. Photo courtesy of Rivalry Tech

A Houston-based company that optimizes mobile ordering for large venues has closed its latest round of funding.

Rivalry Tech, originally founded as sEATz and tackling mobile ordering in sports venues, has raised $3.5 million following expanding with a new product, myEATz, that targets the health care, leisure, and business industries. The round was led by Houston-based Sightcast, with participation from Houston-based Softeq Venture Studio, Rice University’s Valhalla Investment Group, and more.

“Sightcast Capital Partners looks to invest in strong, founder-led companies that bring a forward-thinking solution to everyday problems," says Neal Simpson, managing partner of Sightcast Capital Partners, in a news release. "In Rivalry Tech, we saw a team that recognized an opportunity to streamline the way in which food and beverage transactions occur in the healthcare, leisure, sports, and entertainment markets. Their two-sided approach of using technology as a tool to increase vendor profitability and also positively influence consumer experience is what immediately attracted us to this opportunity." Read more.

Houston unicorn chemicals company raises $200M series D

Solugen closed its series D funding round at $200 million. Photo via Getty Images

Houston-based Solugen has announced its latest round of investment to the tune of $200 million. The company, which reached unicorn status after its $357 million series C round last year, uses its patented Bioforge processes to produce "green" chemicals from bio-based feedstocks.

"Solugen is reimagining the chemistry of everyday life with enzymes found in nature. We make chemicals better, faster, cheaper, and without fossil fuels from right here in Houston, Texas. Whether you care about the climate, local competitiveness, or just plain old profits, we have good news: it's working," the company states in its news release. Read more.

Houston company closes $76M series C round to fuel its mission of reducing carbon emissions

Syzygy Plasmonics has raised a series C round of funding. Photo courtesy of Syzygy

A Houston-based company that is electrifying chemical manufacturing has closed its largest round of funding to date.

Syzygy Plasmonics closed a $76 million series C financing round led by New York-based Carbon Direct Capital. The round included participation from Aramco Ventures, Chevron Technology Ventures, LOTTE CHEMICAL, and Toyota Ventures. The company's existing investors joining the round included EVOK Innovations, The Engine, Equinor Ventures, Goose Capital, Horizons Ventures, Pan American Energy, and Sumitomo Corporation of Americas. According to a news release, Carbon Direct Capital will join Syzygy's board and serve as the series C director.

"We were very attracted to the multiple use cases for the Syzygy reactor and the lifetime-value of each Syzygy customer," says Jonathan Goldberg, Carbon Direct Capital's CEO, in the release. "Emissions from hydrogen production total more than 900 million metric tons of carbon dioxide per year. Syzygy's photocatalysis technology is a key solution to decarbonize hydrogen production as well as other critical industries." Read more.

Houston SaaS startup raises $6M seed

Houston-based SynMax has closed its first round of funding. Photo via Getty Images

A Houston-based satellite data analytics company is celebrating an oversubscribed round of recent funding.

SynMax announced this week that it closed its seed round at $6 million with an oversubscription of $2 million. The startup is providing geospatial intelligence software as a service to customers within the energy and maritime industries. The technology combines earth observation imagery and key data sources for predictive analytics and artificial intelligence.

The company reports that all of the investment came from SynMax customers. The round was led by Houston-based Skylar Capital, an investment management firm focused on the natural gas market. Read more.

Houston health tech startup secures $27M in financing

A Houston startup that created a remote monitoring and care platform has raised millions in financing. Image via michealthcare.com

A virtual health care and analytics provider startup has closed its latest round of funding for a total of $27 million in financing.

Medical Informatics Corp. closed a $17 million series B co-led by Maryland-based Catalio Capital Management and California-based Intel Capital. The financing also includes an additional $10 million in debt led by Catalio through Catalio’s structured equity strategy, according to a news release.

“We are excited to have had this round co-led by Catalio and Intel Capital," says Emma Fauss, CEO and co-founder of MIC, in the release. "Catalio brings significant financial and technical resources, while Intel Capital possesses strong operational and industry experience, and we look forward to continuing to leverage both firms’ expertise as we continue to scale.” Read more.

Houston sportstech platform raises $1.3M seed round

This Houston startup has fresh funding to build out its data intelligence platform. Photo via aim7.com

How many times have you forced yourself to do an arduous workout when you just weren’t feeling it? Despite what some trainers will tell you, you probably didn’t feel any better after. Sports scientist Dr. Erik Korem could have told you that, but more importantly, so could his creation, AIM7.

Marketed as “the fastest, easiest way to change your habits and improve your health,” Korem just raised a $1.3 million seed round that will bring his ambitious app to consumers in its beta form early next month.

The data intelligence platform would know that on a day that you’re stressed, that Peloton tabata ride might not be in your best interest. How? “The data from your Apple Watch or your Fitbit is just data. ‘I walked 7000 steps or I slept 8 hours,’” explains Korem. “We are the recommendation engine that makes this usable for you.” Read more.

Riversand and Gecko Robotics are starting of 2020 with fresh funds for scaling business. Pexels

2 Houston startups land multimillion-dollar venture capital investments

Money moves

Two Houston tech companies are starting off 2020 with fresh funds in their pockets — to the tune of millions and millions of dollars.

Houston-based Riversand raised an additional $10 million last month, and Gecko Robotics, which has an office in Houston, closed a $40 million series B round.

In early December, Crestline Investors invested $10 million into Riversand, which specializes in Master Data Management and Product Information Management software solutions. In 2017, Crestline put $35 million into Riversand's series A round. According to a press release, the additional funds will be used to continue the software-as-a-service company's growth.

"Crestline Investors is a valued partner and has enabled us to deliver a best-in-class product that is seeing incredible adoption and high levels of customer satisfaction," says Upen Varanasi, CEO and founder of Riversand, in a news release. "We will use this additional capital to continuously strengthen our product through innovation, amplify our sales and marketing efforts, and accelerate growth in new geographies and market verticals."

Meanwhile, Gecko raised $40 million in its series B round in December to scale its business plans. The company has grown from 45 to 115 employees in the past year, per a news release. The company will continue to hire.

The round was led by Drive Capital, and had contributions from Founders Fund, Next47, and Y-Combinator.

"We are growing fast solving a critical infrastructure problems that affect our lives, and can even save lives," says Jake Loosararian, Gecko Robotics' co-founder and CEO, in a news release. "At our core, we are a robot-enabled software company that helps stop life threatening catastrophes. We've developed a revolutionary way to use robots as an enabler to capture data for predictability of infrastructure; reducing failure, explosions, emissions and billions of dollars of loss each year."

Gecko Robotics - industrial inspection Gecko Robotics focuses on industrial solutions. Photo via the release

Texas venture capital deals had a slow quarter, according to Crunchbase data. Getty Images

Houston sees underwhelming venture capital funds in Q3 2019, following larger Texas trend

funding fumble

The entire state of Texas saw an unimpressive third quarter of venture deals — especially compared to the second quarter's reports — and Houston was not immune.

The state reported $372.4 million fundraised by tech startups in Q3 of 2019, according to Crunchbase data, which is less than half of what was reported in Q3 of 2018 ($776.8 million) and what the state raked in the second quarter of this year ($830.6 million).

Houston brought in a measly $38.4 million last quarter, per Crunchbase, and compared to the $251 million raised by Houston companies in Q2, that drop stings. It's the lowest quarterly venture amount Houston's seen in over a year, and lower than Houston's $44.7 million reported for Q1. Zooming out a little, the city's venture reports remain a rollercoaster of sorts with strong quarters bookended by lousy ones.

Chart via InnovationMap using Crunchbase data.

Austin maintained its top spot on the Texas venture leader board with $236.4 million of Texas' total $372.4 million raised in Q3 2019, according to Crunchbase, but that's about $200 million less than the city raised in Q2. Meanwhile, Dallas — a city Houston usually competes with for the No. 2 spot — raised $70.3 million compared to its $126.7 million raised in Q2. The only region up in raises is categorized as "other Texas metros," which went from $7.3 million to $27.4 million between Q2 and Q3.

According to Crunchbase, the city's $38.4 million was raised in six deals between June and September 2019. The top deal of those six companies was raised by Axiom Space, which closed a $16 million in a seed round.

Crunchbase's Texas reporter, Mary Ann Azevedo, reminds readers that their proprietary data is subject to reporting delays.

"Actual deal counts and dollar volume totals are higher than what Crunchbase currently has on record, and the numbers we're reporting today are likely to change as more data gets added to Crunchbase over time," she writes.

Just like Crunchbase, InnovationMap doesn't get to report on every single venture deal. However, here are some of the raises we covered in the third quarter of this year.

  • Spruce, a service provider for apartment residents, raised a $3 million round in July. The company moved its headquarters to Austin around the same time. Read more.
  • Grab, a mobile software company that's designed an airport mobile ordering app, closed a multimillion-dollar series A this summer. Read more.
  • Fannin Partners LLC, an early-stage life science commercialization company, closed a $5.25 million round this summer. Read more.
  • Voyager, a bulk shipping software company, raised $1.5 million in seed funding in August. Read more.
  • Cemvita Factory, which created a way to mimic photosynthesis, raised an undisclosed amount from corporate partners in August and September. Read more.
  • Galen Data, which uses its cloud-based software to connect medical devices, closed a $1 million seed round in September. Read more.
  • Syzygy Plasmonics, a hydrogen fuel cell creator, closed a $5.8 million Series A round in September. Read more.
  • sEATz, an app that allows in-seat ordering, closed a $1.3 million seed round in September. Read more.
  • Sourcewater Inc., which specializes in oilfield water intelligence, closed its series A round at $7.2 million in September. Read more.
  • Topl, a blockchain developer, raised over $700,000 in its seed round in September. Read more.
Ad Placement 300x100
Ad Placement 300x600

CultureMap Emails are Awesome

Property Showcase

Baylor College of Medicine launches VC fund to invest in biotech startups

fresh funding

Houston’s Baylor College of Medicine just unveiled a new venture capital fund that backs early-stage biotech startups—and it’s already made its first investment.

BCM Legacy Fund I, funded by philanthropies, invested an undisclosed amount in Houston biotech startup Nemea Therapeutics. Nemea, a spinout of the Baylor College of Medicine and Germany’s Lead Discovery Center, is developing an oral drug to treat metastatic triple-negative breast cancer that no longer responds to currently available therapies.

This type of aggressive cancer spreads from the breast to other areas of the body, such as the bones, liver, lungs or brain. Roughly 38,000 to 57,000 Americans are diagnosed each year with metastatic triple-negative breast cancer. One study showed about half of patients survive past the one-year mark following diagnosis and about one-third survive two years.

“Baylor College of Medicine’s laboratories produce discoveries with the potential to change patients’ lives, and too many of them stall where academic funding ends and private investment has not yet begun,” Dr. Jakub Tolar, president, CEO and executive dean of the Baylor College of Medicine, said in a press release. “The BCM Legacy Fund fills that gap, giving our scientists a path to advance their discoveries to patients.”

The National Institutes of Health awards more than $36 billion per year for biomedical research in the U.S., Baylor said. But some biomedical discoveries “never leave the starting line because they don’t yet fit the economics of venture capital,” the college said.

“The forefront of a new model”

The BCM Legacy Fund aggregates philanthropic capital from private foundations and donor-advised funds. It then invests in startups so they can move beyond that starting line and into later-stage investment rounds. The Greater Houston Community Foundation is the fund’s philanthropic partner.

“It’s exciting to be on the forefront of a new model for philanthropic capital,” said Houston entrepreneur and investor Burton Hanson, managing partner of the fund.

“Not only do we hope to solve a real problem by advancing these therapies to the patients who need them most, but we also hope this model will inspire others in the city and beyond toward philanthropic creativity and a posture of ‘I sacrifice; we win.’”

The fund expects to invest in about 15 early-stage startups over a five-year span. Baylor declined to divulge the amount of money in the fund and the size of the investment in Nemea.

Nemea’s “world-class chemistry”

Hanson oversees the Baylor fund alongside Chicago investor Steve Lehmann, who led the University of Chicago’s Innovation Fund.

Lehmann said Nemea, the fund’s first portfolio company, “has world-class chemistry, Baylor biology, and patients with no good options. Our job is to fund the experiments that carry it to the next handoff, so that industry and later-stage investors can take it from there.”

Based at Houston’s massive Texas Medical Center, Nemea plans to start clinical trials next year in collaboration with Baylor’s Lester and Sue Smith Breast Center.

Nemea previously received $9 million from the Lead Discovery Center and a $1.6 million grant from Baylor. Last year, the startup said it was seeking $25 million to $30 million in seed and Series A funding.

Debra McCoy of Houston, a former managing director at BlackRock and former partner at Bain & Co., and Paul Thomas, co-founder and CEO of Spring-based benefits manager Luscinia Health, sit on the Baylor fund’s governing board. Dr. Paul Klotman, former president, CEO and executive dean of Baylor, is a senior strategic adviser.

How does the fund find investment targets?

The Baylor Legacy Fund relies on two tools to help unearth early-stage biotech startups:

  • High-resolution “innovation maps” of research institutions. These maps surface hidden clusters of innovation, identify rising-star researchers and tie pockets of “innovation supply” at Baylor to areas of “innovation demand” in biotech.
  • AI-enhanced due diligence. AI agents assist with due diligence of early-stage biotech startups. The fund says the platform “distills the frameworks we’ve developed over a decade of teaching and investing into a flexible … diligence environment.”

MD Anderson unveils $3.4B expansion with two new Houston cancer care facilities

major expansion

The cutting edge of cancer-fighting technology and science is getting even sharper after MD Anderson announced last week that it will open two new facilities in the Texas Medical Center within the next five years. Inspiration Tower and Prism will expand MD Anderson’s annual patient load in the TMC to 250,000 annually and will incorporate a variety of new techniques.

The $3.4 billion project will add 2 million square feet to MD Anderson's TMC footprint, bringing its total campus size to 22 million square feet by 2032. Located at the corner of Fannin Street and Holcombe Boulevard, the cancer center says the two new facilities will serve as its new "front door" to the TMC.

“Every detail of these buildings, from the technology to the treatment rooms, was designed around our patients who will receive their care in them and our employees who will work in them. The facilities will serve as a physical representation of hope for the patients and their families who will walk through the doors,” Dr. Jeffrey E. Lee, president ad interim of UT MD Anderson, said in a news release. “Inspiration Tower and Prism are the future of cancer care, and we are grateful for the longstanding support and guidance we’ve received from the UT System Board of Regents to bring these projects to life. These facilities are part of the most impactful capital expansion in UT MD Anderson’s history.”

Prism is especially exciting as it will represent fully half of the linear accelerator treatment in the TMC. Linear accelerator is a radiation treatment that uses magnetically charged fields to deliver targeted external radiation therapy, like shooting cancer with a rail gun. The treatment is safer and has fewer side effects than older radiation treatments.

In addition, Prism will contain 12 MRI machines, four CT scanners, two PET-CT units, 18 radiation vaults and seven radiation simulators. Patient comfort has also been put at a premium with multiple gardens and roof overlooks.

“Every patient we treat deserves an environment that reflects the excellence of the care they receive at UT MD Anderson,” Chris McKee, executive vice president and chief strategy officer at UT MD Anderson, added in the release. “Our new facilities will be innovative, agile, adaptable and beautiful, and they will allow us to care for more patients, more effectively – in an environment that enhances healing and well-being. We are building for our future and for every patient who will be counting on us.”

Prism is slated to open in 2030.

Inspiration Tower will have 25 floors of surgical, diagnostic, and treatment services. At 1.4 million square feet, it’s currently expected to be the largest cancer-specific treatment facility in the United States. The tower will be divided into units for specific types of cancer, making it easy to integrate the advancing research being done all over Houston.

Like Prism, Inspiration Tower is specifically designed to offer comfort and reassurance, with more garden space, terraces, and beautiful scenery to ease patient distress. It is expected to open in 2032.

Tesla will pull the plug on Cybertruck production at Texas factory in 2027

Tesla Talk

Tesla’s Cybertruck, the hulking, stainless-steel pickup that inspired devotion and derision with its science-fiction looks, will cease production next year.

CEO Elon Musk announced the model’s demise Friday, November 6, with a curt post on X, his social media site, simply noting production of the vehicle “will be winding down” around the middle of 2027 at its facility outside Austin, Texas. Musk said the move was to allow increased production of its Cybercab robotaxi.

For the Cybertruck, a pet project of Musk who insisted it was Tesla’s best product, it marks an unceremonious end to one of the auto industry’s most ballyhooed debuts.

“Few vehicles in history have generated as much attention,” said Armen Hareyan, whose Torque News site covers autos. “The Cybertruck became a cultural symbol – loved, mocked and impossible to ignore.”

The Cybertruck rolled onto the scene in a dramatic unveiling in 2019, when a Tesla designer hurled a metal ball at the vehicle to demonstrate its supposedly unbreakable glass, only to see it shatter. He repeated the stunt on another window of the truck only to shatter that one, too.

Even as some critics scoffed, Musk was steadfast.

“I just wanted to make a futuristic battle tank — something that looks like it could come out of ‘Blade Runner’ or ‘Aliens’ or something like that but was also highly functional,” he told Automotive News. He called it “a better sports car than a Porsche 911” and “a better truck than an F-150.”

It struck some as the perfect vehicular reflection of the brash, convention-busting Musk.

“A really controversial vehicle unveiled by a controversial individual into a market where none of the electric trucks have been able to really capture demand,” said Spencer Penn, a former Tesla executive who left the company before the Cybertruck’s launch and now heads software developer LightSource.

Penn remembered watching the unveiling and feeling initially revolted by the sight of the Cybertruck, calling its appearance “madness.” But the more he looked at it, the more his opinion changed. He signed up for a pre-sale reservation, though ended up not getting a Cybertruck when Musk’s promises of a price tag under $40,000 went unmet and the first trucks sold for double or more. Penn called the Cybertruck part of Tesla’s adventurous spirit that drives innovation.

“Some of these bets work and some of these bets don’t,” he said.

While the decision to end Cybertruck production may be driven by sales realities, it's also a reflection of Tesla’s shift to autonomous vehicles, on which Musk is betting the company’s future.

Musk once forecast he’d make 250,000 Cybertrucks a year. Kelley Blue Book estimated Tesla sold just 20,237 of the vehicles last year, down about half from the year prior. Sales through the end of September this year were down another 28%, according to Kelley Blue Book.

If the imposing, sharp-angled, dystopian appearance of the Cybertruck weren’t enough to turn many potential buyers away, Musk did so himself by allying with a panoply of right-wing figures, most notably U.S. President Donald Trump. He alienated some customers as his image morphed from eccentric innovator to polarizing force trading his billions for political influence.

Once-passionate Tesla drivers rushed to sell off their cars, or slapped stickers on the bumper declaring, “I bought this before Elon went crazy.” Organizers staged demonstrations outside Tesla showrooms and urged investors to dump shares of the company’s stock. Anger spilled into violence, with Molotov cocktails hurled at Tesla vehicles, charging stations set ablaze, and dealerships covered in graffiti.

Lovers of the Cybertruck became targets, too, subjected to shouts of “Nazi!” and extended middle fingers.

Ross Blankenship is one of them. When he first laid eyes on the Cybertruck, he felt transported to a world from his childhood, when he would play “Halo,” the sci-fi video game. He had to have it.

“I had that sort of child in me wanting to be part of something cool that would change the future of automotive,” Blankenship said in a call from his Cybertruck as he drove through Sunnyside, Colorado. Even as Blankenship found he agreed with Musk on politics, he hated seeing a vehicle he loved turned into a political symbol. “I never bought it for any other reason than the fascination with the future technology of trucks … so that was a little heartbreaking.”

He would buy another Cybertruck again in a heartbeat, calling its end “a sad moment.”

View All Listings