3 Houston innovators to know this week

who's who

This week's roundup of Houston innovators includes Vibhu Sharma of InnoVent Renewables, Ashley DeWalt of DivInc, and Josh Teekell of SmartAC.com. Photos courtesy

Editor's note: Every week, I introduce you to a handful of Houston innovators to know recently making headlines with news of innovative technology, investment activity, and more. This week's batch includes three innovators across sports tech, clean energy, and more.

Vibhu Sharma, founder and CEO of InnoVent Renewables

Vibhu Sharma of InnoVent Renewables joins the Houston Innovators Podcast. Photo via LinkedIn

Vibhu Sharma observed a huge sustainability problem within the automotive industry, and he was tired of no one doing anything about it.

"Globally, humans dispose 1 billion tires every year," Sharma says on the Houston Innovators Podcast. "It's a massive environmental and public health problem because these tires can take hundreds of years to break down, and what they start doing is leaking chemicals into the soil."

Today, 98 percent of all tires end up in landfills, Sharma says, and this waste contributes to a multitude of problems — from mosquito and pest infestation to chemical leaks and fire hazards. That's why he founded InnoVent Renewables, a Houston-based company that uses its proprietary continuous pyrolysis technology to convert waste tires into valuable fuels, steel, and chemicals. Continue reading.

Ashley DeWalt, managing director of DivInc

Ashley DeWalt shares news of DivInc's newest partnership. Photo courtesy of DivInc

DivInc, a Texas-based accelerator focused on uplifting people of color and women founders, is collaborating with the NBA Foundation to provide Black Houston youth with paid internships at tech startups.

Leveraging its expansive portfolio of startups, DivInc will pair 25 Houston-based undergraduate and graduate students (ages 18 to 24) with tech companies the nonprofit has mentored. The 10-week internship program will provide students with professional development workshops and firsthand entrepreneurial experiences. The program also ensures a symbiotic relationship as the startups’ founders gain access to an expanded talent pool and further development opportunities via DivInc.

"We are thrilled to partner with the NBA Foundation to bring this transformative opportunity to life," says Ashley DeWalt, managing director of DivInc. "Together, we are bridging the gap between talent and opportunity, creating meaningful experiences that empower Black youth to lead in their communities and beyond." Continue reading.

​Josh Teekell, founder and CEO of SmartAC.com

\u200bJosh Teekell, founder and CEO of SmartAC.com

Josh Teekell shares news of SmartAC's latest funding. Photo courtesy

Houston-based SmartAC.com, which provides a customer loyalty management platform for contractors, has raised a follow-on round from Mercury Fund and other investors. The dollar amount of the round wasn’t disclosed.

An October filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) indicates SmartAC.com planned to raise $8.2 million in venture capital. Of that sum, about $4 million had already been raised, the company reported, and nearly $4.2 million remained to be raised.

“Growing a business in the trades is all about customer loyalty, and loyalty is driven by optimizing the customer’s experience,” Josh Teekell, founder and CEO of SmartAC.com, says in a news release. Continue reading.

Vibhu Sharma, founder and CEO of InnoVent Renewables, joins the Houston Innovators Podcast. Photo via LinkedIn

Houston startup's revolutionary automotive recycling tech to begin commercial operations

houston innovators podcast episode 267

Vibhu Sharma observed a huge sustainability problem within the automotive industry, and he was tired of no one doing anything about it.

"Globally, humans dispose 1 billion tires every year," Sharma says on the Houston Innovators Podcast. "It's a massive environmental and public health problem because these tires can take hundreds of years to break down, and what they start doing is leaking chemicals into the soil."

Today, 98 percent of all tires end up in landfills, Sharma says, and this waste contributes to a multitude of problems — from mosquito and pest infestation to chemical leaks and fire hazards. That's why he founded InnoVent Renewables, a Houston-based company that uses its proprietary continuous pyrolysis technology to convert waste tires into valuable fuels, steel, and chemicals.

While the process of pyrolysis — decomposing materials using high heat — isn't new, InnoVent's process has a potential to be uniquely impactful. As Sharma explains on the show, he's targeting areas with an existing supply of waste tires. The company's first plant — located in Monterrey, Mexico — is expected to go online early in the new year, an impressive accomplishment considering Sharma started his company just over a year ago and bootstrapped the business with only a friends and family round of funding.

"It's about 16 months or so from start to commercial operations, which is phenomenal when you consider what it takes to build and operate a chemical or petrochemical facility," Sharma says.

Currently, with the facility close to operations, Sharma is looking to secure customers for the plant's products — which includes diesel, steel, and carbon black — and he doesn't have to look too far out of the automotive industry for his potential customer base. Additionally, the plant should be net zero by day one, since Sharma says he will be using the output to fuel operations.

While the first facility is in Mexico, Sharma says they are already looking at potential secondary locations with Texas at the top of his list. Houston, where Sharma has worked for 26 years, has been a strategic headquarters for InnoVent.

"When it came to doing the research and development, we were able to work with experts in the Houston and Texas areas to test out our idea and validate it," Sharma says. "One thing that gets under appreciated about Houston is how well it's connected to the rest of the world. There are so many direct connections between Houston and Latin America, as well as Europe, Middle East, and Asia."

"I also find that the Houston ecosystem is very supportive of new companies and helping them grow," he adds.

Clockwise from top left: Sean Kelly of Amperon, Dianna Liu of ARIXTechnologies, Matthew Dawson of Elementium Materials, Vibhu Sharma of InnoVent Renewables, Cindy Taff of Sage Geosystems, and Emma Konet of Tierra Climate. Photos courtesy

Overheard: Houston's top energy transition founders explain their biggest challenges

Houston Innovation Awards

From finding funding to navigating the pace of traditional oil and gas company tech adoption, energy transition companies face their fair share of challenges.

This year's Houston Innovation Awards finalists in the Energy Transition category explained what their biggest challenge has been and how they've overcome it. See what they said below, and make sure to secure your tickets to the Nov. 14 event to see which of these finalists win the award.

"The evolving nature of the energy industry presents opportunities to solve some of our industry's greatest challenges. At Amperon we help optimize grid reliability and stability with the power of AI demand forecasting."

— Sean Kelly, CEO of Amperon, an AI platform powering the smart grid of the future

"The biggest challenge in leading an energy transition-focused startup has been balancing the urgency for sustainable solutions with the slow pace of change in traditional industries like oil and gas. Many companies are cautious about adopting new technologies, especially when it comes to integrating sustainability initiatives. We overcame this by positioning our solutions not just as environmentally friendly, but as tools that improve safety, efficiency, and cost savings. By aligning our value proposition with their operational goals and demonstrating real, measurable benefits, we were able to gain traction and drive adoption in industries that are traditionally resistant to change."

— Dianna Liu, CEO of ARIXTechnologies, an integrated robotics and data analytics company that delivers inspection services through its robotics platforms

"Scaling up production of hard tech is a major challenge. Thankfully, we recruited top-notch talent with experience in technology scale-up and chemical processes. In addition, we've begun building partnerships with some of the world's largest chemical manufacturers in our space who are excited to be a part of our journey and could rapidly accelerate our go to market strategy. We have significant demand for our product as early as 2025, so partnering with these companies to scale-up will bring our technology to market years ahead of doing it alone."

— Matthew Dawson, CEO of Elementium Materials, a battery technology with liquid electrolyte solutions

"Our pyrolysis reactor is a proprietary design that was developed during Covid. We ran simulations to prove that it works, but it was not easy to test it in a pilot facility, let alone scaling it up. We managed ... to run our pilot plant studies, while working with them remotely. We proved that our reactor worked and produced high quality products. Later, we built our own pilot plant R&D facility to continue running tests and optimizing the process. Then, there was the challenge of scaling it up to commercial size. ... We put together a task force of four different companies to come together to design and build this complex reactor in record time."

— Vibhu Sharma, CEO of InnoVentRenewables, a startup with proprietary continuous pyrolysis technology that converts waste tires, plastics, and biomass into valuable fuels and chemicals

"Energy storage and geothermal power generation are capital-intensive infrastructure projects, requiring investors with a deep commitment and the patience in terms of years to allow the technology to be developed and proven in the field. One challenge is finding that niche of investors with the vision to join our journey. We have succeeded in raising our $30 million series A with these types of investors, whom we’re confident will continue the journey as we scale."

— Cindy Taff, CEO of SageGeosystems, an energy company focused on developing and deploying advanced geothermal technologies to provide reliable power and sustainable energy storage solutions regardless of geography

"The biggest challenge we've faced has been to bring together massive independent power producers on one side who are investing hundreds of millions of dollars into grid infrastructure with multi- national tech giants on the other that don't have experience working much with energy storage. As a startup with only four employees, gaining credibility with these players was critical. We overcame this hurdle by becoming the preeminent thought leader on storage emissions, through publishing white papers, discussing the issues on podcasts, and (more)."

— Emma Konet, CTO of TierraClimate, a software provider that helps grid-scale batteries reduce carbon emissions

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This article originally ran on EnergyCapital.

Calling all Houstonians — help InnovationMap decide on this year's People's Choice: Startup of the Year winner. Graphic via Gow Media

People's Choice: Pick your startup of the year for the 2024 Houston Innovation Awards

you decide

It's firmly voting season in Houston, and in addition to deciding the nation's next political leaders, the local innovation ecosystem is being called to weigh in on one category for the Houston Innovation Awards.

This year's People's Choice: Startup of the Year voting is officially open online. Read about each company below, then click here to cast your vote. You may vote once per day up until Nov. 8 when the portal closes. The winner will be named at the Nov. 14 event — click here to secure your ticketto see who wins in this and the other dozen categories.

Corrolytics

Founded by CEO Anwar Sadek, this minority-owned startup uses its patented electrochemical technology to detect and monitor corrosion. Unlike others in the market, Corrolytics allows for on-site, real-time, accurate detection of corrosion, helping to safeguard industrial assets and prolong their lifespans.

Last month, Corrolytics, which is also a finalist in the Minority-Founded Business category, was named among the most promising energy tech startups at the Rice Alliance for Technology and Entrepreneurship's Energy Tech Venture Forum and won the People's Choice Award. It was part of the Rice Alliance Clean Energy Accelerator earlier this year.

What significant milestone(s) has your company reached this year?

We launched our comprehensive in-lab services in Q4 of 2023, generating $100,000 in revenue. By 2024, we tripled our revenue, confirming our early product-market fit while serving four major customers in the energy sector. With the ruggedization and scalable design of our test kit now complete, we’re set to begin field trials in the next quarter. Additionally, Corrolytics has secured a Joint Development Agreement with a leading oil and gas service provider, extending our reach across the global energy market.

What advice do you wish you could tell yourself before you started your company?

Embrace the challenges early on, as they are invaluable learning opportunities. Focus on building a strong network, especially with mentors and industry leaders who can guide you through the unknowns. Lastly, be prepared for the unexpected, stay adaptable and never underestimate the importance of a clear mission that inspires both your team and your customers.

Why did you choose Houston for your company's headquarters and how has your experience been growing a company here?

Houston is the energy capital of the world, providing unparalleled access to major industry players, talent and resources. The city's strong focus on innovation and its thriving clean energy ecosystem has been a perfect fit for Corrolytics. Growing the company here has been an amazing experience—Houston’s vibrant startup community, world-class accelerators like the Rice Alliance, and its strategic location have accelerated our growth and opened doors to invaluable partnerships. Houston truly offers the ideal environment for scaling a cleantech startup like ours and advancing the future of sustainable energy.

FlowCare

FlowCare is focused on addressing menstrual inequity by providing flagship dispensers stocked with free, 100 percent organic pads and tampons for schools and businesses, while raising awareness about the issues that impacks millions.

The startup was founded in January and is led by Founder and CEO Tanu Jain.

What significant milestone(s) has your company reached this year?

Here’s a summary of the significant milestones FlowCare has reached this year:

  • Building a supportive community: We’ve established a vibrant community of FlowCare cheerleaders and advisors who are passionate about our mission.
  • Newsletter Success: Our newsletter, launched just two months ago, now reaches 2,000 people each month with an impressive 50 percent to 60 percent open rate. We’ve also been moved by the personal stories of period struggles shared by our readers.
  • Competition Achievements: We secured fourth place in the Houston Community College Business Plan Competition, winning $1,000 and raising awareness about period product accessibility. FlowCare also earned a top four finish out of 200 participants in the TiE Dallas Global Pitch Competition.
  • Successful Pilot at ION: We’ve commenced a paid pilot with ION, receiving heartfelt text messages from women expressing how FlowCare has positively impacted their day and alleviated embarrassment by providing period products in restrooms."

What advice do you wish you could tell yourself before you started your company?

Expect the journey to be challenging and more time-consuming than anticipated. You’ll face financial struggles and setbacks, but remember to stay patient and resilient. Embrace the journey and find joy in the small victories along the way. Build a network of supportive individuals who believe in your mission and can help you navigate the tough times. You’ll experience self-doubt and imposter syndrome, but remember, even high-profile leaders experience these feelings. Stay focused on your mission and trust in your ability to make a difference.

Why did you choose Houston for your company's headquarters and how has your experience been growing a company here?

I chose Houston for FlowCare’s headquarters because it’s home to me—having grown up here, it felt natural to build my company in a place I know and love. My experience growing the company here has been incredibly positive. Houston boasts a strong and supportive community with a robust network of individuals who are always willing to help. As an entrepreneur, having access to people who are willing to spend time with you, offer guidance, and introduce you to the right connections is invaluable. The local support has been a key factor in keeping us going towards the mission of period equity.

InnoVent Renewables

InnoVent Renewables is a circular economy business that has developed a proprietary net-zero process that converts waste tires, plastics, and biomass into fuels and chemicals. It estimates that it will reduce emissions by 80 million pounds when its production facility is operating.

InnoVent was founded by chemical-engineer-turned-CEO Vibhu Sharma in 2023. It has plans for aggressive growth across North America and Latin America.

What significant milestone(s) has your company reached this year?

We started our business in July 2023, raised a "friends and family" round, which was oversubscribed, and we carry no debt. We went from concept to the commissioning stage in 14 months and will start full commercial operations in Q4 2024.

What advice do you wish you could tell yourself before you started your company?

Always raise more cash than you think you will need. We raised a friends and family round and then had to tap that network again to get some additional funds to account for some add-ons and escalations.

Why did you choose Houston for your company's headquarters and how has your experience been growing a company here?

Houston is a remarkably affordable city with exceptional talent and expertise in engineering, design, renewables, and oil and gas processes. In addition, we were able to tap an excellent and experienced advisory board that has been guiding us. Houston is well connected with the rest of the world, as well as easy access to Monterrey, Mexico, where our tire facility is located.

MendIt

MendIt Inc. was founded in 2019 to help quickly and easily connect users with small businesses and non-profits that can mend and repair clothing sustainably.

It is led by CEO and founder Kaitlyn Allen and was a member of the gBETA Houston accelerator in 2023.

What significant milestone(s) has your company reached this year?

We are finally in the feasibility phase of our (stealth) B2B offering for brands and are excited that the initial results are positive and are pointing to scalability. We are currently in the process of contracting to provide our solution for two initial B2B customers.

What advice do you wish you could tell yourself before you started your company?

Seek product-market fit from the beginning (rather than product-problem fit), and don’t invest so much before that is demonstrated.

Why did you choose Houston for your company's headquarters and how has your experience been growing a company here?

We founded MendIt in Houston because it is our hometown and where we lived. It’s been interesting growing a non-energy-related company because so many of the resources are focused on that sector, and at the same time we get to stand out as the only “tech” startup focused on fashion and textile sustainability.

Passport Journeys

Passport Journeys is a teletherapy app that's specifically designed for mother-daughter pairs. The app launched on Mother's Day 2023 and provides users with personalized therapies, journal opportunities, interactive worksheets and intentional bonding activities.

The company is led by founder and CEO Lacey Tezino.

What significant milestone(s) has your company reached this year?

This year, we’ve achieved several significant milestones: We filed for a trademark to protect our brand, applied for our first NIH SBIR grant to secure funding for our innovative teletherapy app, and launched a nonprofit arm to provide free therapy to those in need, demonstrating our commitment to both innovation and community support.

What advice do you wish you could tell yourself before you started your company?

I would advise myself to secure funding and the sustainability plan for the first five years before leaving the big corporate job.

Why did you choose Houston for your company's headquarters and how has your experience been growing a company here?

We chose Houston for our company’s headquarters due to its vibrant and diverse community, robust health care and tech sectors, and supportive entrepreneurial ecosystem. Growing our company here has been a rewarding experience, marked by strong local partnerships, access to a large talent pool, and a dynamic business environment that fosters innovation and collaboration. The city’s emphasis on healthcare and technology aligns well with our mission, providing a solid foundation for our growth and impact.

TrueLeap

Ed-tech startup TrueLeap Inc. aims to address the global education gap by providing affordable, scalable digital tools to educators in emerging markets through its e-learning platform.

Founded in 2022, it raised $610,000 in a pre-seed round earlier this year, which was over its target of $500,000. It's led by co-founders Sandip Bordoloi, who serves as CEO, and Sunny Zhang, the company's Chief Evangelist. Dario Calogero, founder and CEO of Maya Investments Limited, which led the round, was recently named to the company's board of directors.

True Leap is being developed out of Born Global Ventures, a Houston venture studio focused on advancing immigrant-founded technology, of which Zhang is a founding partner. It serves educators in schools in the United States, India, the Democratic Republic of Congo and other countries.

What significant milestone(s) has your company reached this year?

Advancing our mission to make education accessible to underserved communities worldwide, we have reached the following milestones:

1. New country entry into Ghana by partnering with International Business and Opportunity Network (IBON)
2. Expanded implementation in the DRC by partnering with the Catholic School Association
3. New product launch enabled global educators and institutions to create and distribute high-quality content to prepare global talents for success.

What advice do you wish you could tell yourself before you started your company?

Just do it.

Why did you choose Houston for your company's headquarters and how has your experience been growing a company here?

We chose Houston for its diversity and international connections, which align with our mission to expand access to education worldwide. The city's supportive startup scene, access to top talent, and thriving innovation ecosystem have made it an ideal place to grow TrueLeap.

Pick your 2024 Houston Startup of the Year.

Want to work for one of the top startups in Houston? These ones are hiring. Photo via Getty Images

Where to work: These 2024 Houston Innovation Awards finalists are hiring

growing biz

About a third of this year's startup finalists for the Houston Innovation Awards are hiring — from contract positions all the way up to senior-level roles.

The finalists, announced last week, range from the medical to energy to AI-related startups and will be celebrated next month on Thursday, November 14, at the Houston Innovation Awards at TMC Helix Park. Over 50 finalists will be recognized for their achievements across 13 categories, which includes the 2024 Trailblazer Legacy Awards that were announced earlier this month.

Click here to secure your tickets to see which growing startups win.

Let's take a look at where you could land a job at one of Houston's top startups.

Double-digit growth

When submitting their applications for the 2024 Houston Innovation Awards, every startup was asked if it was hiring. Four Houston startups replied that they are growing their teams rapidly.

Houston e-commerce startup Cart.com, one of the city's few $1 billion-plus “unicorns," reported that it is hiring approximately 50 new employees. The company, which focuses on commerce and logistics software development, secured $105 million in debt refinancing from investment manager BlackRock this summer following a $25 million series C extension round that brought Cart.com’s Series C total to $85 million. It currently has about 1,500 employees and 4 offices in three companies since it was founded in 2020, according to its website.

Houston energy tech company Enovate Ai (previously known as Enovate Upstream) reported that it is hiring 10-plus positions. The company, with 35 current employees, helps automate business and operational processes for decarbonization and energy optimization. Its CEO and founder, Camilo Mejia, sat down for an interview with InnovationMap in 2020. Click here to read the Q&A.

Square Robot is hiring about 10 new Houston employees and 15 total between Houston and other markets, according to its application. The advanced robotics company was founded in Boston in 2016 and opened its Houston office in August 2019. It develops submersible robots for the energy industry, specifically for storage tank inspections and eliminating the need for humans to enter dangerous and toxic environments. Last year it reported to be hiring 10 to 30 employees as well, ahead of the 2023 Houston Innovators Award. It currently has 25 Houston employees and about 50 nationally.

InnoVent Renewables LLC is also hiring 15 new employees to be based in Mexico. The company launched last year with its proprietary continuous pyrolysis technology that can convert waste tires, plastics, and biomass into fuels and chemicals. The company scaled up in 2022 and has operations in Pune, India, and Monterrey, Mexico, with plans for aggressive growth across North America and Latin America. It has 20 employees in Mexico and one in Houston currently.

Senior roles

Geothermal energy startup Sage Geosystems reported that it is looking to fill two senior roles in the company. It also said it anticipates further staff growth after its first commercial energy storage facility is commissioned at the end of the year in the San Antonio metro area. The company also recently expanded its partnership with the United States Department of Defense's Defense Innovation Unit and announced this month that it was selected to conduct geothermal project development initiatives at Naval Air Station in Corpus Christi. It has 12 full-time employees, according to its application.

Steady growth

Other companies reported that they are hiring a handful of new workers, which for some will increase headcount by about 50 percent to 100 percent.

Allterum Therapeutics reported that it is adding six employees to its current team of 13. The biopharmaceutical company that is under the Fannin Partners portfolio of med tech companies was awarded a $12 million product development grant from the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas this spring.

Dauntless XR will add between five and eight employees, according to its application. It currently has four employees. The augmented reality software company, originally founded as Future Sight AR in 2018, recently secured a NASA contract for space weather technology after rebranding and pivoting. The company's CEO, Lori-Lee Elliott, recently sat down with the Houston Innovators Podcast. Click here to hear the interview.

Syzygy Plasmonics is hiring four positions to add to its team of 120. The company was named to Fast Company's energy innovation list earlier this year.

Venus Aerospace is adding five to 10 key hires to its team of 72. Andrew Duggleby founded the company with his wife and CEO Sassie in 2020, before relocating to the Houston Spaceport in 2021. Last year, Venus raised a $20 million series A round, and it successfully ran the first long-duration engine test of their Rotating Detonation Rocket Engine in partnership with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, earlier this year.

​Seeking selectively

Other finalists are adding to their teams with a handful of new hires of contract gigs.

​Future roles

Other finalists reported that they are currently not hiring, but had plans to in the near future.

NanoTech Materials Inc., which recently moved to a new facility, is not currently. Hiring but said it plans with new funding during its series B.

Renewable energy startup CLS Wind is not hiring at this time but reported that it plans to when the company closes funding in late 2024.

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UH student earns prestigious award for cancer vaccine research

up-and-comer

Cole Woody, a biology major in the College of Natural Sciences and Mathematics at the University of Houston, has been awarded a Barry Goldwater Scholarship, becoming the first sophomore in UH history to earn the prestigious prize for research in natural sciences, mathematics and engineering.

Woody was recognized for his research on developing potential cancer vaccines through chimeric RNAs. The work specifically investigates how a vaccine can more aggressively target cancers.

Woody developed the MHCole Pipeline, a bioinformatic tool that predicts peptide-HLA binding affinities with nearly 100 percent improvement in data processing efficiency. The MHCole Pipeline aims to find cancer-specific targets and develop personalized vaccines. Woody is also a junior research associate at the UH Sequencing Core and works in Dr. Steven Hsesheng Lin’s lab at MD Anderson Cancer Center.

“Cole’s work ethic and dedication are unmatched,” Preethi Gunaratne, director of the UH Sequencing Core and professor of Biology & Biochemistry at NSM, said in a news release. “He consistently worked 60 to 70 hours a week, committing himself to learning new techniques and coding the MHCole pipeline.”

Woody plans to earn his MD-PhD and has been accepted into the Harvard/MIT MD-PhD Early Access to Research Training (HEART) program. According to UH, recipients of the Goldwater Scholarship often go on to win various nationally prestigious awards.

"Cole’s ability to independently design and implement such a transformative tool at such an early stage in his career demonstrates his exceptional technical acumen and creative problem-solving skills, which should go a long way towards a promising career in immuno-oncology,” Gunaratne added in the release.

Houston founder on shaping the future of medicine through biotechnology and resilience

Guest Column

Living with chronic disease has shaped my life in profound ways. My journey began in 5th grade when I was diagnosed with Scheuermann’s disease, a degenerative disc condition that kept me sidelined for an entire year. Later, I was diagnosed with hereditary neuropathy with liability to pressure palsies (HNPP), a condition that significantly impacts nerve recovery. These experiences didn’t just challenge me physically, they reshaped my perspective on healthcare — and ultimately set me on my path to entrepreneurship. What started as personal health struggles evolved into a mission to transform patient care through innovative biotechnology.

A defining part of living with these conditions was the diagnostic process. I underwent nerve tests that involved electrical shocks to my hands and arms — without anesthesia — to measure nerve activity. The pain was intense, and each test left me thinking: There has to be a better way. Even in those difficult moments, I found myself thinking about how to improve the tools and processes used in healthcare.

HNPP, in particular, has been a frustrating condition. For most people, sleeping on an arm might cause temporary numbness that disappears in an hour. For me, that same numbness can last six months. Even more debilitating is the loss of strength and fine motor skills. Living with this reality forced me to take an active role in understanding my health and seeking solutions, a mindset that would later shape my approach to leadership.

Growing up in Houston, I was surrounded by innovation. My grandfather, a pioneering urologist, was among the first to introduce kidney dialysis in the city in the 1950s. His dedication to advancing patient care initially inspired me to pursue medicine. Though my path eventually led me to healthcare administration and eventually biotech, his influence instilled in me a lifelong commitment to medicine and making a difference.

Houston’s thriving medical and entrepreneurial ecosystems played a critical role in my journey. The city’s culture of innovation and collaboration provided opportunities to explore solutions to unmet medical needs. When I transitioned from healthcare administration to founding biotech companies, I drew on the same resilience I had developed while managing my own health challenges.

My experience with chronic disease also shaped my leadership philosophy. Rather than accepting diagnoses passively, I took a proactive approach questioning assumptions, collaborating with experts, and seeking new solutions. These same principles now guide decision-making at FibroBiologics, where we are committed to developing groundbreaking therapies that go beyond symptom management to address the root causes of disease.

The resilience I built through my health struggles has been invaluable in navigating business challenges. While my early career in healthcare administration provided industry insights, launching and leading companies required the same determination I had relied on in my personal health journey.

I believe the future of healthcare lies in curative treatments, not just symptom management. Fibroblast cells hold the promise of engaging the body’s own healing processes — the most powerful cure for chronic diseases. Cell therapy represents both a scientific breakthrough and a significant business opportunity, one that has the potential to improve patient outcomes while reducing long-term healthcare costs.

Innovation in medicine isn’t just about technology; it’s about reimagining what’s possible. The future of healthcare is being written today. At FibroBiologics, our mission is driven by more than just financial success. We are focused on making a meaningful impact on patients’ lives, and this purpose-driven approach helps attract talent, engage stakeholders, and differentiate in the marketplace. Aligning business goals with patient needs isn’t just the right thing to do, it’s a powerful model for sustainable growth and lasting innovation in biotech.

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Pete O’Heeron is the CEO and founder of FibroBiologics, a Houston-based regenerative medicine company.


Houston researchers make headway on affordable, sustainable sodium-ion battery

Energy Solutions

A new study by researchers from Rice University’s Department of Materials Science and NanoEngineering, Baylor University and the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research Thiruvananthapuram has introduced a solution that could help develop more affordable and sustainable sodium-ion batteries.

The findings were recently published in the journal Advanced Functional Materials.

The team worked with tiny cone- and disc-shaped carbon materials from oil and gas industry byproducts with a pure graphitic structure. The forms allow for more efficient energy storage with larger sodium and potassium ions, which is a challenge for anodes in battery research. Sodium and potassium are more widely available and cheaper than lithium.

“For years, we’ve known that sodium and potassium are attractive alternatives to lithium,” Pulickel Ajayan, the Benjamin M. and Mary Greenwood Anderson Professor of Engineering at Rice, said in a news release. “But the challenge has always been finding carbon-based anode materials that can store these larger ions efficiently.”

Lithium-ion batteries traditionally rely on graphite as an anode material. However, traditional graphite structures cannot efficiently store sodium or potassium energy, since the atoms are too big and interactions become too complex to slide in and out of graphite’s layers. The cone and disc structures “offer curvature and spacing that welcome sodium and potassium ions without the need for chemical doping (the process of intentionally adding small amounts of specific atoms or molecules to change its properties) or other artificial modifications,” according to the study.

“This is one of the first clear demonstrations of sodium-ion intercalation in pure graphitic materials with such stability,” Atin Pramanik, first author of the study and a postdoctoral associate in Ajayan’s lab, said in the release. “It challenges the belief that pure graphite can’t work with sodium.”

In lab tests, the carbon cones and discs stored about 230 milliamp-hours of charge per gram (mAh/g) by using sodium ions. They still held 151 mAh/g even after 2,000 fast charging cycles. They also worked with potassium-ion batteries.

“We believe this discovery opens up a new design space for battery anodes,” Ajayan added in the release. “Instead of changing the chemistry, we’re changing the shape, and that’s proving to be just as interesting.”

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This story originally appeared on EnergyCapitalHTX.com.

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