Houston health tech startup launches COVID-19 vaccine management tool

inoculation innovation

Image via luminaremed.com

Houston-based health care software startup Luminare Inc. is arming soldiers in the coronavirus vaccination campaign with technology to help smooth the inoculation process.

Luminare, which launched with the mission of combating sepsis, switched gears after the onset of the coronavirus pandemic to help combat the virus' spread. One of the ways it's doing that is with Innoculate (a mash-up of "innovate" and "inoculate"). The new platform enables organizations like public health departments, fire departments, school systems, and businesses to manage high-volume vaccination initiatives.

Among other benefits, Innoculate automates vaccination sign-ups and scheduling, tracks the number of vaccine batches available, flags previous allergic reactions among vaccine recipients, and helps achieve compliance with federal, state and local health care requirements.

"Usually when you hear news of a new batch of vaccines headed your way, there is dread at the management and distribution overhead. Not anymore," Dr. Sarma Velamuri, CEO of Luminare, says in a release. "Innoculate will help streamline the vaccination process in the fight against COVID-19 and allow for hundreds of thousands of people to get vaccines easily."

One of the first customers of Innoculate is the Corpus Christi-Nueces County Public Health District. Innoculate helped the district vaccinate 9,000 people during the first week of its vaccination effort. Peter Collins, chief information officer of the City of Corpus Christi, says Innoculate allows more vaccinations to be done without adding administrative burdens.

Corpus Christi-Nueces County Public Health District was the first government outfit to use Innoculate. The district also uses Luminare's Quickscreen COVID-19 screening and testing tool.

Dallas County Health and Human Services also is adopting Innoculate. On January 27, Dallas County approved a 12-month contract with Luminare worth up to $601,500.

Other new customers that are lined up for Innoculate include the Abilene-Taylor County Public Health District, Wichita Falls-Wichita County Public Health District, and Brenham-based Blinn College District. Innoculate deals are being finalized with 13 other city and county governments.

Luminare says it wants to "help as many cities and counties in the U.S. that we can." The company asks organizations seeking help with coronavirus vaccination campaigns to email mike.gilbert@luminaremed.com or info@luminaremed.com.

Luminare was founded in 2014 with the goal of preventing sepsis, a life-threatening reaction to a host of infections that triggers about one-third of U.S. hospital deaths. Its sepsis-targeted software is called Sagitta.

After the coronavirus began spreading, Luminare tweaked its sepsis-detection platform, called Quickscreen, to produce a free online self-assessment for people who suspect they've been infected with the virus. The startup was honored for this work as COVID Phoenix in Houston Exponential's inaugural awards program, The Listies. Now, it has added Innoculate to its pandemic-fighting arsenal.

Luminare, based at Texas Medical Center's innovation campus, is a 2018 graduate of the TMCx accelerator. According to Crunchbase, the company has collected more than $1.6 million in funding.

From Your Site Articles
Ad Placement 300x100
Ad Placement 300x600

CultureMap Emails are Awesome

Property Showcase

New Texas Stock Exchange officially begins trading in Dallas

Welcome to Y'all Street

Two-step aside, New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq. The Dallas-based Texas Stock Exchange, nicknamed Y’all Street, just kicked off live trading with five stocks — and lots of Lone Star ambition.

“The Texas Stock Exchange aims to revitalize competition for [stock] issuers, establish the premier venue for listings, and create a world-class trading platform for all market participants,” the exchange says in a fact sheet.

The exchange — whose Texas-influenced nickname is a nod to New York City’s Wall Street — has collected at least $275 million in investments. The roughly 90 financial backers of TXSE include Bank of America, BlackRock, Charles Schwab, Citadel Securities, Dell Family Office, Fortress, Goldman Sachs, and JPMorgan Chase.

Representatives of TXSE couldn’t be reached for comment. On its website, the exchange calls itself “the most well-capitalized equities exchange to ever be approved” by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

Not to be outdone, NYSE has launched Dallas-based NYSE Texas and Nasdaq has expanded its presence in Dallas.

Y’all Street adds to Dallas-Fort Worth’s rising status as a major hub for financial services, with The Wall Street Journal naming North Texas the country’s second biggest financial hub after New York City.

“A homegrown national exchange means more jobs, more investment, and more growth opportunities for businesses and communities across the Lone Star State,” Gabriela von zur Muehlen, senior vice president and chief policy officer at the Texas Association of Business, told The Texas Tribune.

Bulent Temel, an associate professor of practice in economics at the University of Texas at San Antonio, told Texas Standard that TXSE “is going to boost the credibility of the Texas economy.”

Texas’ estimated gross domestic product (GDP), a yardstick for the size of an economy, climbed to a record-setting $2.9 trillion in 2025, making it the state with the second highest GDP after California. DFW’s estimated GDP in 2023 stood at $744.6 billion, eclipsing the GDP of many countries.

“The center of gravity for American capitalism is now headquartered in the Boom Belt,” Abbott proclaimed in April, referring to an 11-state region (including Texas) in the South and Southeast that’s seeing tremendous economic and population growth. “The Texas Stock Exchange is the natural extension of that capitalism. It ensures that capital markets will reflect the quadrant that is driving American growth.”

---

This article originally appeared on CultureMap.com.

Orion vehicle manager reflects on Artemis II, looks to 2028 moon mission

Q&A

Humanity is finally headed back to the moon after more than half a century. This year's launch of the Artemis II mission in the Orion spacecraft put four crew members in lunar orbit and tested the new ship developed by Lockheed Martin.

Everything went smoothly, safely returning astronauts home, but there is always room to improve. InnovationMap chatted via email with Orion vehicle manager Branelle Rodriguez, shortly after a talk at The Ion, for insight on how Orion might perform in the future as the next lunar landing approaches in early 2028.

InnovationMap: How satisfied are you with the way Orion operated on this past mission?

Branelle Rodriguez: Orion performed exceptionally well during Artemis II, successfully demonstrating critical spacecraft capabilities, including life support systems, displays and controls, and executing manual piloting operations. Artemis II brought humans back to the moon, achieving key exploration and scientific imagery, while validating systems essential for future Artemis missions.

IM: What is the most important thing you learned about improving Orion for the next mission?

BR: The Artemis II mission provided invaluable insights into crew operations and spacecraft performance in a deep-space environment. With every mission, NASA applies lessons learned to continuously improve Orion’s operations, validate design and ensure mission readiness. Artemis II offered our first opportunity to evaluate several new systems and gain a deeper understanding of what it is like for astronauts to live and work inside the spacecraft. The operational, technical and human factors data collected are being integrated across the program to refine future missions, reduce risk and enhance overall mission success.

IM: How has Orion helped the mission to explore space?

BR: Orion is one of NASA’s foundational elements for human deep space exploration—not only supporting the mission but serving as a core component of it. It is currently the only spacecraft capable of carrying crew on deep space missions and returning them safely to Earth from the high speeds required from the vicinity of the moon. No other spacecraft has the technology to endure the extremes that come with human deep-space travel, such as advanced environmental and life support, navigation, communications, radiation shielding, and the world’s largest ablative heat shield to protect the astronauts during reentry into Earth’s atmosphere. Orion has already taken astronauts to explore space farther than ever before—252,756 miles from Earth— and will carry crews to the moon on future missions to explore the lunar South Pole region. The astronauts’ observations, samples, and data collected on these future missions will expand our understanding of our solar system and home planet.

---

This conversation has been edited for brevity and clarity.

Houston VC funding nears $1B in first half of 2026, report says

by the numbers

Despite a weak second quarter, venture capital funding for Houston-area startups approached $1 billion in the first half of 2026, the region’s highest first-half total since 2022, according to the latest PitchBook-NVCA Venture Monitor.

This year’s first-half total of $962.4 million represented a nearly 8 percent increase over last year’s first-half total of $891.7 million. Dating back to 2016, this year’s first-half haul lags behind only 2021 and 2022 for the most first-half funding.

Houston’s year-over-year VC jump of 73 percent in the first quarter of 2026 more than made up for the year-over-year drop of 34 percent in the second quarter of 2026, according to the report.

Deal count tells a more encouraging story: Houston startups closed 102 deals in the first half, up from 93 a year earlier and the region’s busiest first half since 2022. However, the average deal size shrank, as no single funding source dominated the total.

Keep in mind that PitchBook and NVCA routinely revise quarterly numbers upward to reflect deals that were reported after a previous quarter’s data was published. So, in the case of Houston, numbers initially reported for the first quarter of 2026 may not match newly reported numbers.

Perhaps the most notable Houston-area deal announced in the first half of this year was Cart.com’s $180 million growth equity investment, led by Springcoast Partners. Cart.com is an e-commerce platform and logistics provider.

PitchBook-NVCA data shows Houston’s VC activity is growing modestly, delivering better numbers in the first half of 2026 versus 2024 and 2025, but it still sits below the highs of 2021 and 2022. This is one sign that so far in 2026, the national VC boom isn’t benefiting non-hub markets like Houston the way it’s boosting some hub markets, especially Silicon Valley and New York City.

Nationwide, AI dominated VC funding in the first half of this year. The sector made up 86 percent of VC from January through June. The report notes that the markets have still struggled to unlock IPOs, with SpaceX being the biggest exception, and few M&A deals outside health care have been significant.

View All Listings