Play it back: How this Houston innovator is championing women in health tech

HOUSTON INNOVATORS PODCAST EPISODE 264

Revisit a conversation with Ayse McCracken of Ignite Health, which recently named its 2024 winners. Photo via Ignite/LinkedIn

With her long-standing career in health care, Ayse McCracken knows women are integral in leading health care. That's why she started Ignite Healthcare Network — to help find, support, and champion female health tech founders.

Originally founded in 2017 as a pitch competition, Ignite has evolved to become an active and integral program for female health tech entrepreneurs. Last month, the organization hosted its annual Fire Pitch Competition, and six finalists walked away with awards. At the event, the founders pitched their health tech solutions across lung health, renal therapy, breastfeeding tech, and more.

Last year, McCracken joined the Houston Innovators Podcast to share her story of starting Ignite and how its evolved since, accelerating around 100 female founders and advancing life-saving health care technology.

"Success to me isn't just getting people an early stage investment," she says on the show. "Success to me is getting companies that actually commercialize, get their products in the market, and that they are actually making an impact on health wellbeing, patients, and so forth."

"Having an impact in the health care industry and finding solutions is important to me," McCracken adds. "The second aspect of that is there are so many women in health care, and yet you don't see them in leadership roles."

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After growing in Chicago and raising funding, Partum Health selected Houston to expand its femtech platform. Photo via Getty Image

Growing femtech company chooses Houston for first out-of-state expansion

moving in

A startup dedicated to comprehensive pregnancy, birth and postpartum care has expanded from its Chicago birthplace to Houston.

Last summer, Partum Health raised $3.1 million in seed funding, which makes it possible for the company to begin a nationwide expansion. That begins in Space City.

“We looked at states where there is work to do on outcomes for maternal health. Texas rose to the top and Houston, in many ways is fairly close to Chicago, our home city. The really thriving healthcare ecosystem attracted us as well,” CEO and Co-Founder Meghan Doyle tells InnovationMap.

As a mom of a seven-year-old and a nine-year-old herself, Doyle says that she experienced the gap firsthand in what’s available to women beyond what her obstetrician or midwife does.

“You had to work really hard to cobble together the care you needed. It was a matter of putting together my personal experiences of realizing it’s not just me, it’s systematic,” says Doyle. “I couldn’t get that problem out of my head.”

Neither could her co-founder and head of operations, Matt Rogers, a father of twins whose family had to navigate the NICU and life-threatening complications. They started working together on the business in earnest during the COVID shutdown and debuted Partum Health at the beginning of 2021.

Partum has begun partnering with obstetricians and midwives to help select complementary care that includes lactation support, pelvic floor physical therapy, mental health services, nutrition counseling and doula care. What’s unique about the plan is that, from aiding in behavioral health problems to addressing nutritional issues, the user’s team is distributed around the Houston area and are fully virtual. Physical therapy and other services that must be done in-person may take place either in-home or at third-party locations.

“We’re still in the process of credentialing with insurance companies,” says Doyle.

In Illinois, Partum is already working with BlueCross BlueShield, United Healthcare, Aetna and Cigna for clinical care, so Doyle says she is confident that those companies will soon follow suit in Texas.

While hiring a team in Houston that includes a client care lead, Doyle says that Partum is simultaneously providing services and getting to know the market better. They’re also building more bundled models of care to better assist users in their new landscape.

Doyle and Partum Healthcare participated in the Ignite Healthcare Network’s 2023 program, which concluded last week with a pitch competition. Ignite helps female healthcare founders to connect with mentors and other industry experts that will help them navigate the health tech ecosystem. Doyle was one of nine finalists, but did not place in the top three. But she says the program has helped prepare her for success nonetheless.

“In our world, you’re always pitching,” she admits.

The next steps for Partum include a 2024 rife with expansion. Because building relationships with insurance happens on a state-by-state basis, the company will be able to help women around Texas soon after the company is comfortably established in Houston. The Dallas-Fort Worth area will likely be first, followed by Austin and San Antonio.

“We know there’s a huge gap in access to care that may mean evolving a little bit and reaching out across the state,” Doyle says.

Last month, the Texas Health and Human Services Commission reported that 90 percent of the state’s pregnancy-related deaths are preventable. With access to care like what Partum provides, those complications could become a thing of the past.

Houston-based Steradian Technologies founder Asma Mirza took home third place at the annual awards. Photo by Natalie Harms/InnovationMap

Houston female-focused health tech pitch competition names top 3 startup founders

A female-focused pitch competition named its top health tech startups for the fifth year running.

Ignite Healthcare Network, a Houston nonprofit founded on the mission of supporting women in health care, hosted its annual Fire Pitch Competition on November 9 at the Ion, crowning the award recipients and doling out cash prizes.

This year, Ignite accelerated 19 female health tech founders through its program that connects entrepreneurs with mentors and industry professionals. The program concludes with a select number of finalists presenting at the Fire Pitch event.

This year, eight finalists presented at the competition for judges and an audience:

Suchismita Acharya, CEO of Fort Worth-based AyuVis, an immunotherapy platform that's developing treatments and prevention for inflammatory and infectious diseases, specifically of the lung, kidney, skin, eye, and sepsis.
Piyush Modak, co-founder, vice president of research and development of New Jersey-based EndoMedix, a technology platform developing engineered biosurgery devices that address clinical needs. The first device based on this platform is PlexiClotTM Absorbable Hemostat for brain and spinal surgery.
Somer Baburek, co-founder and CEO of San Antonio-based HERAbiotech, which is developing a non-surgical, molecular diagnostic test for endometriosis.
Melissa Bowley, founder of Flourish Care, a B2B health services platform and network addressing maternal health disparities and improve outcomes. The Boston company works with health systems and insurance companies..
Patty Lee, co-founder and CEO of Orbit Health, a Munich-based company that uses AI and sensor technologies to develop digital health solutions for the management of Parkinson's.
Tawny Hammett, chief revenue officer of New York-based Paloma Health, a patient-focused technology providing holistic approach to thyroid care all from the comfort of home.
Meghan Doyle, CEO and co-founder of Chicago-based Partum Health, a company focused on combining specialty reproductive care, including mental health, lactation, nutrition, physical therapy, birth doula support, and more.
Asma Mirza, CEO and co-founder of Houston-based Steradian Technologies, creator of the RUMI, a medical device that's providing diagnostic accessibility.

Ayse McCracken, founder and board chair of Ignite, and her partners presented several prizes and awards, including naming the winners — EndoMedix won first place, Hera Biotech secured second place, and Steradian Technologies was awarded third place.

In addition to naming the three top companies, the following prizes were doled out:

Memorial Hermann presented AyuVis with a certificate indicating interest in a potential partnership.
Golden Seeds awarded a $1,000 cash prize and three hours of mentoring to Steradian Technologies.
Texas Children's Hospital presented Flourish Care with a certificate indicating interest in a potential partnership.
Southwest-Midwest National Pediatric Device Innovation Consortium awarded Hera Biotech with $20,000.
Houston Methodist awarded each of the three top companies with mentorship from innovation leadership.
JLabs presented EndoMedix with a one-year virtual residency.
Donna Peters, founder of The Me Suite and mentor for Ignite, presented Hera Biotech with three coaching sessions.

Last year, Joanna Nathan, CEO of Houston-based Prana Thoracic, won the top award for her company. The company went on to raise a $3 million seed round.

Earlier this year, McCracken sat down with InnovationMap to share how she's grown the program over the past five years — and why she's so passionate about what she does.

"Having an impact in the health care industry and finding solutions is important to me," McCracken says on an episode of the Houston Innovators Podcast. "The second aspect of that is there are so many women in health care, and yet you don't see them in leadership roles."

This week's roundup of Houston innovators includes Ayse McCracken of Ignite Healthcare Network, Paul Cherukuri of Rice University, and Oyetewa Oyerinde of Baylor College of Medicine. Photos courtesy

3 Houston innovators to know this week

who's who

Editor's note: In this week's roundup of Houston innovators to know, I'm introducing you to three local innovators across industries — from health care to academia — recently making headlines in Houston innovation.

Ayse McCracken, founder of Ignite Healthcare Network

Ayse McCracken, founder of Ignite Healthcare Network, joins the Houston Innovators Podcast to discuss how she's growing her impact on female health tech founders. Photo via LinkedIn

With a decades-long career in health care, Ayse McCracken's most recent professional chapter has been laser focused on finding, supporting, and accelerating female-founded startups in health tech with her nonprofit, Ignite Healthcare Network.

Originally founded in 2017 as a pitch competition, Ignite has evolved to become an active and integral program for female health tech entrepreneurs. Ninety-one founders have graduated from Ignite and gone on to raise over $550 million in funding for their ventures. Currently, Ignite has 19 women in its 2023 cohort, which concludes November 9 with the annual Fire Pitch competition.

"Having an impact in the health care industry and finding solutions is important to me," McCracken says of her passion for Ignite on this week's episode of the Houston Innovators Podcast. "The second aspect of that is there are so many women in health care, and yet you don't see them in leadership roles." Read more.

Paul Cherukuri, vice president of innovation at Rice University

Paul Cherukuri, vice president of innovation at Rice University, has had a busy week. Photo via Rice.edu

If it's seemed like a lot has been happening on Rice University campus this month, it's because it has. This week, Paul Cherukuri, Rice’s vice president for innovation hosted an event announcing the university's Biotech Launch Pad, a new accelerator focused on commercializing health care innovations.

“The Biotech Launch Pad is the first in a series of Rice Moonshots that are hyper-focused on building a ‘speed and scale’ innovation ecosystem across Houston," Cherukuri says. "We at Rice are committed towards driving the Biotech Launch Pad in collaboration with our partners within the Texas Medical Center and the new Helix Park campus.” Read more.

The university also recently announced:

The Rice University Office of Innovation's newly established the One Small Step Grant program that will provide funding to faculty working on "promising projects with commercial potential." Read more.
The opening of the Ralph S. O’Connor Building for Engineering and Science, the university's largest core campus research facility. The 250,000-square-foot building is the new home for four key research areas at Rice: advanced materials, quantum science and computing, urban research and innovation, and the energy transition. The university aims for the space to foster collaboration and innovation between the disciplines. Read more.

Oyetewa Oyerinde, leader of the Skin of Color Clinic and assistant professor of dermatology at Baylor College of Medicine

The Skin of Color Clinic is devoted to the unique needs of patients of all ethnicities. Photo courtesy of BCM

All skin is created equal, but not all skin behaves the same. It’s with this in mind that Baylor Medicine Dermatology has announced the debut of its newest office.

The Skin of Color Clinic is located inside the Jamail Specialty Care Center and is devoted to the unique needs of patients of all ethnicities.

The leader of the Skin of Color Clinic is assistant professor of dermatology, Oyetewa Oyerinde. Dr. Oyerinde, a Howard University and University of Illinois at Chicago College of Medicine alum, completed her residency training at Harvard University, where she made it to the role of chief resident in her final year.

“I am excited to lead a clinic that addresses skin issues commonly found in underserved populations,” Oyerinde says in a news release. “I want people in Houston to know that there is a place where an expert will know how to care for their specific needs.” Read more.

Ayse McCracken, founder of Ignite Healthcare Network, joins the Houston Innovators Podcast to discuss how she's growing her impact on female health tech founders. Photo via LinkedIn

Houston health tech leader to expand accelerator to continue connecting female founders

HOUSTON INNOVATORS PODCAST EPISODE 203

With Ignite, McCracken is actively seeking out these potential female leaders, and giving them the support — through mentorship, programming, and networking opportunities — they need to grow their business.

Each year, McCracken explains, she's pushing the envelope with what she can accomplish with Ignite. This year, she hosted a new event in Dallas to reach female founders there, and coming soon, Ignite will launch a platform that will extend its relationship with its founders and keep them looped in with potential customers, mentors, investors, and more.

"We're in the process of building our own platform that continues to connect our ecosystem so that we're not just an episode in the journey of an entrepreneur, but that we have the ability to help them along their path," McCracken says. "That path is a rollercoaster for a variety of reasons — whether it's gender or market related — and if we help to provide a community that can provide support for companies that have promise, our goal is to, over time, triple the money that female entrepreneurs are getting."

But McCracken says she wants Ignite to do more than just find investors for her network of founders.

"Success to me isn't just getting people an early stage investment," she explains. "Success to me is getting companies that actually commercialize, get their products in the market, and that they are actually making an impact on health wellbeing, patients, and so forth."

McCracken shares more about the future of Ignite on the podcast. Listen to the interview here — or wherever you stream your podcasts — and subscribe for weekly episodes.

Meet the female health tech founders being accelerated by Ignite Healthcare this year. Photo courtesy of Ignite

Houston health tech accelerator names annual cohort ahead of its pitch competition

female founders

Last month, a Houston organization dedicated to supporting female founders in health care kicked off its 2023 accelerator with cohort participants from across the country.

Ignite Healthcare Network, based in Houston, is a nonprofit founded on the mission of supporting women in health care. Ignite established its 12-week accelerator program to help advance and connect female health tech founders with mentors and potential clients as their startups scale.

"We have 19 founders doing great work, and we have them matched with three to four advisors helping to mentor them," Ayse McCracken, founder and board chair of Ignite tells InnovationMap. "We also have a virtual learning program, which is new this year, and we have two sessions of those a week."

The programming is curated to tackle the health tech industry's biggest topics and provide advice for a small group of engaged startups, McCracken explains. In its fifth year now, the program has a large group of partners that are involved.

"We've had 91 companies come through our program in the last fours years," McCracken says. "They've raised over $550 million."

The cohort concludes on November 9 with the Fire Pitch Competition at the Ion, where a handful of finalists — selected by Ignite's team of mentors — will present to win the top award.

This year's cohort includes:

Somer Baburek, CEO and co-founder of Hera Biotech
Sue Carr, president and founder of CarrTech Corp
Suchismita Acharya, CEO, chief strategy officer, and co-founder of AyuVis
Asma Mirza, CEO and founder of Steradian Technologies
J’Vanay Santos, CEO and founder of MyLÚA Health
Maureen Brown, CEO and co-founder of Mosie Baby
Elizabeth Friedman, president and founder of Safen Medical Products
Meghan Doyle, CEO and co-founder of Partum Health
Marina Tarasova, COO and co-founder of Paloma Health
Melissa Bowley, CEO and founder of Flourish Care
Molly Hegarty, CEO and founder of Junum
Patty Lee, CEO and co-founder of Orbit Health
Piyush Modak, Vice President of R&D and co-founder of EndoMedix
Debbie Chen, CEO and founder of Hydrostasis
Rachael Grimaldi, CEO and co-founder of CardMedic
Rachna Dhamija, CEO of Ejenta
Carolyn Treviño Jenkins, CEO and co-founder of We Are Here
Lyn Markey, CEO and co-founder of XTremedy
Camille O’Malley, CTO and co-founder of XTremedy

Last year, Joanna Nathan, CEO of Houston-based Prana Thoracic, won the top award for her company.

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2 leading Texas universities rank among world’s best for entrepreneurs

honor roll

The Lone Star State’s two biggest universities—the University of Texas at Austin and Texas A&M University—rank among the world’s best schools for entrepreneurs.

PitchBook’s annual list of the world’s top 100 universities for entrepreneurs takes into account both undergraduate and graduate programs. PitchBook analyzed more than 222,000 startup founders whose startups are VC-backed.

UT’s “unique” advantage

UT Austin landed at No. 10 on the list, down from No. 8 last year. PitchBook identified 1,002 UT-alumni founders at 948 startups. Collectively, those startups have raised $34.7 billion, according to PitchBook.

Among the 948 UT Austin-affiliated startups, these five have raised the most capital:

No. 1 Tucson, Arizona-based World View, $2.8 billion
No. 2 Austin-based Apptronik, $966 million
No. 3 Mountain View, California-based Lightmatter, $821 million
No. 4 Austin-based Function Health, $807 million
No. 5. San Francisco-based Niantic, $779 million

“The unique UT Austin advantage is the alignment between the university and the city,” Foundra.ai says. “Unlike schools where the campus ecosystem and the local startup scene are disconnected, Austin’s startup community actively recruits UT students and alumni, and UT programs actively send students into the local ecosystem.”

Texas A&M’s “living laboratory”

UT Austin’s biggest in-state rival, Texas A&M, appeared at No. 79 on the list, down from No. 76 last year. PitchBook tallied 317 A&M-alumni founders at 295 startups. Collectively, those startups have raised $9.8 billion, according to PitchBook.

Among the 317 A&M-affiliated startups, these five have raised the most capital:

No. 1 Austin-based RigUp, $817 million
No. 2 Austin-based ICON, $543 million
No. 3 Scottsdale, Arizona-based HomeLight, $413 million
No. 4 Everett, Washington-based Zap Energy, $326 million
No. 5 San Diego-based Splice Therapeutics, $320 million

A cornerstone of Texas A&M’s entrepreneurship offerings is the Center for Applied Entrepreneurship and Innovation at the Mays School of Business. The business school says the center “helps students explore, test, build, buy, and transform businesses in real markets.”

“Grounded in Texas as a living laboratory and guided by the Aggie core values, the center advances applied learning through industry engagement, AI-enabled experimentation, and collaboration across Mays and Texas A&M,” the business school says.

The most “exceptional” schools on PitchBook’s list

In announcing its rankings, PitchBook said: “Great entrepreneurs can come from anywhere, but some universities have a truly exceptional track record of attracting and producing future founders.”

The most exceptional universities, based on PitchBook’s criteria, are:

No. 1 University of California, Berkeley
No. 2 Stanford University
No. 3 Harvard University
No. 4 Cornell University
No. 5 Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)

Planned KBR spinoff scores $1B NOAA deal for extreme weather forecasting

weather watch

Amid a major spinoff, Houston-based KBR's Mission Technology Solutions business has been awarded a five-year contract for up to $1.1 billion from NOAA’s National Weather Service to help predict and combat extreme weather conditions.

Under the follow-on Commercial Data Program National Mesonet Program (CDP NMP) contract, KBR will provide weather and observational data from commercial stations, university and research campuses, and other non-federal providers nationwide. The information collected will assist in predicting severe temperatures and high-impact weather conditions like extreme storms.

"This award underscores KBR's proven track record of delivering vital data that strengthens national forecasting capabilities," Todd May, KBR’s senior vice president of Mission Technology Solutions, said in a news release.

According to a separate release from NOAA, the contract expands upon KBR's existing relationship with the agency. KBR will work with about 70 private industry partners on services such as data recording, collection, aggregation and processing, and will lead the CDP NMP's "network of networks."

“NOAA gathers environmental information from a wide variety of sources, and a growing list of private industry partners have joined our agency to collect this vital data,” Ken Graham, director of NOAA’s National Weather Service, said in the release. “This agreement streamlines the process that turns raw data into the gold-standard forecasts that Americans depend on.”

KBR will utilize its Speed to Mission ImpactSM technology for the project to supply data from across regions, measurement types, and system configurations. Both KBR and NOAA say the expanded data collection contract will help the agency create more accurate and timely forecasts, particularly for severe weather and extreme events, while also creating a path for new weather-observation technologies.

KBR has supported the CDP NMP for more than 9 years. The program will be managed in Greenbelt, Maryland.

"We're driving expanded integration of commercial sensor and data sources into this platform and are honored to know our work helps forecasters give their communities earlier warnings and more time to prepare for dangerous weather,” May added in a release.

KBR’s Mission Technology Solutions business will be rebranded as Trinzic after its planned spin-off, the company announced last month. The spin-off is expected to close in January 2027.

Trinzic will work as an independent, publicly traded company focused on technology and engineering services for the space and national security sector. KBR will remain a separate publicly traded company that will focus on sustainable technology and services to support the energy transition.

This is the salary required to live comfortably in Texas in 2026

Money Matters

A new national report looking at the income it takes to live comfortably in each of the 50 states has revealed Texans need to earn slightly less now than a year ago.

SmartAsset analyzed what a single individual, as well as family of four, must earn to cover minimum basic needs adjusted using the 50/30/20 budgeting rule. The resulting estimate represents the annual, pre-tax income needed to live comfortably in every U.S. state.

A single, full-time worker needs to make $90,563 to live comfortably in the Lone Star State, the report found, which is down a meager 0.2 percent from last year ($90,771).

Under the 50/30/20 budgeting strategy, that means a single Texas earner would have $45,282 to spend on necessities like housing and utilities, $27,169 for discretionary spending, and $18,113 for emergencies or retirement savings.

Texas ranked 34th nationally in SmartAsset's list of states with the highest income needed for a single adult to live "in sustainable comfort" in 2026. Only five other states — Tennessee, Maryland, Louisiana, North Carolina, and Mississippi — saw a decline in the income needed to live comfortably this year.

For a family of four to live comfortably in Texas, income requirements change significantly, according to the findings. To support a two-child household, a family needs $203,424 in combined total household income to be considered financially stable. This is down slightly from 2025, when SmartAsset reported a family of four in needed $204,922 to live comfortably in Texas.

This is a comfortable lifestyle for a family of four in Texas, according to the report:

$101,712 dedicated to necessities and living expenses
$61,027 dedicated to discretionary spending
$40,685 dedicated to emergencies, savings, or debt repaymen

According to the report, a family of four now needs to make at least $200,000 to live comfortably in 40 U.S. states, a figure that is far out of reach for many American families.

"As housing, grocery, transportation and other essential costs pressure household budgets, earning a six-figure salary no longer guarantees financial comfort in much of the U.S.," the report said. "A single adult now needs at least $80,000 a year to live comfortably in every state, while the threshold exceeds $100,000 in nearly half of states. For a family of four, the income needed to live comfortably is as much as $329,000."

Still, earning the minimum income to live comfortably in Texas doesn't guarantee financial stability in the Lone Star State's major cities. Earlier this year, SmartAsset determined single residents in Houston need to make about $90,000 to qualify as financially stable, while families of four need around $205,000.

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This article originally appeared on CultureMap.com.

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