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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Houston leads U.S. in population growth for 2025, Census says

Boomtown

Imagine that the Houston metro area swallowed a city the size of Pearland in just one year. That’s essentially what happened from 2024 to 2025, with the Houston metro ranking first in the U.S. for population growth based on the number of people.

New estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau show the 10-county Houston metro added 126,720 residents from July 1, 2024, to July 1, 2025. That’s just shy of Pearland’s roughly 133,000-resident tally.

To calculate population, the Census Bureau counts births, deaths, new residents, and moved-away residents.

Region’s population approaches 8 million

On July 1, 2025, the Houston metro’s population hovered slightly above 7.9 million, up 1.6 percent from the same time in 2024. In the very near future, the region’s population should break the eight million mark.

This follows massive growth in the past 20 years. From 2005 to 2025, the region’s population soared by 39 percent. By comparison, the growth rate from 2021 to 2025 sat at nine percent.

A forecast from the Texas Demographics Center indicates that under a middle-of-the-road scenario, the Houston metro’s population will reach nearly 8.5 million in mid-2030 and more than 9.5 million in mid-2040.

Dan Potter, director of Rice University’s Houston Population Research Center, attributes much of the region’s population surge to people moving to the area from outside the U.S. In Harris County, this means a combination of military personnel returning home, people living or working overseas coming back to the U.S., and immigrants relocating to the U.S., he tells CultureMap.

But Harris County fell short from 2024 to 2025 when it comes to people moving here from elsewhere in the U.S., according to Potter. Counties surrounding Harris County benefited from that trend, drawing new residents who preferred to settle in the suburbs.

“The incredible pull and attraction of the Houston area is its economy, its people, and its affordability, and the significant growth that was observed in 2024 and again in 2025 speaks to the magnetism of the region,” Potter says. “That pull to Houston is too strong to be turned off overnight.”

Cooling economy and immigration shifts slow down growth

Whether looking at urban or suburban places, population growth in the Houston area slowed in 2025 and appears to be slowing even more this year, Potter says.

“A cooling economy and changes to immigration policy are a one-two combination that could knock out the region’s population growth,” says Potter, citing the region’s addition of a less-than-expected 14,800 jobs in 2025 as an example.

Weaker population growth may not be felt evenly across the metro area, according to Potter.

A continuing influx of people from Houston to outlying counties such as Brazoria, Fort Bend, Liberty, Montgomery, and Waller could curb growth in Harris County, Potter said. Why? If the number of people arriving from other other countries flattens or even drops, then there could be “doughnut-style population growth for the next few years, where Harris County and Houston see declines while the suburban counties see an increase.”

Harris County represents 40 percent of region’s population lift

Houston-anchored Harris County accounted for almost 40 percent of the region’s population spike from 2024 to 2025. In one year, Harris County grew by 48,695 residents, or 1 percent, pushing its population past five million. That increase put Harris County in first place for numeric growth (rather than percentage growth) among all U.S. counties.

From 2020 to 2025, Harris County’s growth rate was 6.6 percent. It remains the country’s third largest county based on population, behind Southern California’s Los Angeles County and Illinois’ Chicago-anchored Cook County.

Harris County is on track to surpass Cook County in size in the near future. As of July 1, 2025, a nearly 150,000-resident gap separated population-losing Cook County and fast-growing Harris County.

The Texas Demographics Center predicts Harris County’s population will be 5.37 million in mid-2030 and just short of six million in mid-2040.

Suburban counties see significant population gains

Harris County isn’t the only county in the area that experienced a growth spurt from 2024 to 2025:

Waller County’s population climbed 5.69 percent, winding up at 69,858. Its growth rate ranked second among U.S. counties.
Liberty County’s population rose 4.4 percent to 121,364, putting its growth rate in eighth place among U.S. counties.
Montgomery County gained 30,011 residents, with its population landing at 781,194. That placed it at No. 4 among U.S. counties for numeric growth.
Fort Bend County picked up 24,163 residents, arriving at a total of 975,191 and positioning it at No. 8 among U.S. counties for numeric growth. Fort Bend County, the region’s second largest county based on population, is projected to break the one million-resident mark by July 2030, according to the Texas Demographics Center.

“Lower mortgage rates from 2009 to 2022 and the rise of remote work have made suburban housing more attractive, especially for families seeking affordability,” Pramod Sambidi, the Houston-Galveston Area Council’s assistant director of data analytics and research, said last year. “Additionally, suburban areas are seeing more multifamily developments than before the pandemic.”

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This article originally appeared on CultureMap.com.

5 Houston-area companies named among world's most innovative for 2026

In The Spotlight

Led by Conroe-based Hertha Metals, five organizations in the Houston area earned praise on Fast Company’s list of the World’s Most Innovative Companies of 2026.

Hertha Metals ranked No. 1 in the manufacturing category.

Last year, Hertha unveiled a single-step process for steelmaking that it says is cheaper, more energy-efficient and just as scalable as traditional steel manufacturing. It started testing the process in 2024 at a one-metric-ton-per-day pilot plant.

At the same time, Hertha announced more than $17 million in venture capital funding from investors such as Breakthrough Energy, Clean Energy Ventures, Khosla Ventures, and Pear VC.

“We’re not just reinventing steelmaking; we’re redefining what’s possible in materials, manufacturing, and national resilience,” Laureen Meroueh, founder and CEO of Hertha, said at the time.

Meroueh was also recently named to Inc. Magazine's 2026 Female Founders 500 list.

Hertha, founded in 2022, says traditional steelmaking relies on an outdated, coal-based multistep process that is costly, and contributes up to 9 percent of industrial energy use and 10 percent of global carbon emissions.

By contrast, Hertha’s method converts low-grade iron ore into molten steel or high-purity iron in one step. The company says its process is 30 percent more energy-efficient than traditional steelmaking and costs less than producing steel in China.

Last year, Hertha said it planned to break ground in 2026 on a plant capable of producing more than 9,000 metric tons of steel per year. In its next phase, the company plans to operate at 500,000 metric tons of steel production per year.

Here are Fast Company’s rankings for the four other Houston-area organizations:

Houston-based Vaulted Deep, No. 3 in catchall “other” category.
XGS Energy, No. 7 in the energy category. XGS’ proprietary solid-state geothermal system uses thermally conductive materials to deliver affordable energy anywhere hot rock is located. While Fast Company lists Houston as XGS’ headquarters, and the company has a major presence in the city, XGS is based in Palo Alto, California.
Houston-based residential real estate brokerage Epique Realty, No. 10 in the business services category. Epique, which bills itself as the industry’s first AI brokerage, provides a free AI toolkit for real estate agents to enhance marketing, streamline content creation, and improve engagement with clients and prospects.
Texas A&M University’s Nanostructured Materials Lab in College Station. The lab studies nano-structured materials to make materials lighter for the aerospace industry, improve energy storage, and enable the creation of “smart” textiles.

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This article first appeared on our sister site, EnergyCapitalHTX.com.

UH lands $11.8M for first-of-its-kind early language development study

speech funding

Researchers at the University of Houston have secured an $11.8 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to conduct a first-of-its-kind study of early language development.

Led by Elena Grigorenko, the Hugh Roy and Lillie Cranz Cullen Distinguished Professor of Psychology, and research professor Jack Fletcher, the study will follow 3,600 children aged 18 to 24 months to uncover how language skills develop at this critical stage and why some children experience delays that can influence later growth.

The NIH funding will also support the development of the new national Clinical Research Center on Developmental Language Disorders at UH, which aims to bring experts from psychology, education, health and measurement sciences to study how children learn language.

“This will be the first national study to estimate how common late talking is using a large, representative sample of Houston toddlers,” Grigorenko said in a news release. “By following these children as they grow, we hope to better understand the developmental pathways that can lead to conditions such as developmental language disorder and autism.”

UH’s team will partner with the pediatric clinic network at Texas Children’s Hospital, where children will be screened for early language development, allowing researchers to identify those who show signs of delayed speech. Next, researchers will follow the cohort through early childhood to examine how language abilities evolve and how early delays may lead to later challenges.

The Clinical Research Center on Developmental Language Disorders will be the 14th national research center established at UH, and will include researchers from multiple UH departments, as well as partners at Baylor College of Medicine and the Texas Center for Learning Disorders.

“This level of investment from the National Institutes of Health reflects the significance of this work to address a complex challenge affecting children, families and communities,” Claudia Neuhauser, vice president for research at UH, said in a news release. “By bringing together experts from multiple disciplines and partnering with major health systems across the region, the project reflects our commitment to advancing discoveries that impact our community.”

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