A startup and a nonprofit makerspace have rallied to create PPE, or personal protective equipment, for local hospitals. Getty Images

In the span of one day, the founders of Houston-based Lazarus 3D received calls from emergency room directors and physicians and vice presidents of hospitals explaining a dire need for personal protective equipment — like surgical masks and face shields — for medical professionals in the front lines of the battle against COVID-19.

"We stopped everything we were doing," says Jacques Zaneveld, co-founder of Lazarus, which makes 3D-printed human organs for surgeons to practice on. "We've moved 100 percent of our focus on developing PPE."

Now, Zaneveld with his co-founder, Smriti Agrawal Zaneveld, have manufacturing orders in for 700,000 surgical masks weekly and have designed a non-FDA approved face shield, which they have ordered a few million of. The duo has taken out a short-term loan to front the cost of the medical equipment and are now looking for the right customers to buy these new PPE products. All hospitals and medical professionals in need of supplies can head to Lazarus' website to request more info.

"Our personal feeling has been to do whatever we can do to build as many as possible," Jacques tells InnovationMap. "It's very stressful because I'm borrowing money that we don't have in order to set up these production lines."

On the other side of town, 3D printing nonprofit TXRX has reprogramed 30 of its 3D printers to make PPE. The nonprofit is working Memorial Hermann to quickly prototype and test items made with materials they can get their hands on.

The Center for Disease Control has relaxed some of the requirements for PPE in light of the crisis and shortage, and Roland von Kurnatowski, president at TX/RX Labs, says that has helped speed up their efforts. But, the biggest challenge, he says, has been to quickly get together a design and prototype for Memorial Hermann to give them feedback so that they can then produce the products.

"I think there are a lot of people out there producing devices, but I think the problem is there's not a lot of clarity around materials, quality, and acceptance. People are doing what they can with what they've got," says von Kurnatowski. "Our hope working with Memorial Hermann was to make sure we are devising and testing devices that are functional and appropriate.

TXRX is also relying on Memorial Hermann and others in the medical community to indicate which PPE devices are most needed. Currently, the nonprofit is printing 10,000 face shields for Memorial Hermann, but also has designs for N95 respirators, surgical masks, a positive air pressure respirator (or PAPR), Tyvek suit, and even a portable shield for the intubation process.

Von Kurnatowski says the Houston community can get involved by donating to TXRX's GoFundMe campaign. The 3D printing process is quick and local, but expensive and out of budget for hospitals, so TXRX is taking a loss on its products it is creating. The organization is also looking for people who might have 3D printing materials or experience to volunteer — TXRX has about 20 people working on this but hopes that number ramps up to 60 to 80 people helping out.

Crisis also brings the community together in their time of need — that's what Zaneveld says he sees happening.

"Everyone who is at all involved in the medical space in engineering in Houston is trying to put stuff out," Zaneveld says. "We're sharing information and trying to work together to support each other."

Human-tissue printing technology, blockchain networks, health care solutions, game-changing software — all this innovation and more is coming out of Houston startups. Courtesy photos

Editor's Picks: Top 10 Houston startup feature stories of 2019

2019 in review

Thousands of startups call Houston home. According to the Greater Houston Partnership's data, the Houston area added 11,700 firms between 2013 to 2018. And, if you consider Crunchbase's tally, at the end of 2018, Houston had over 1,400 tech startups on the investment tracking website's radar.

This past year, InnovationMap featured profiles on dozens of these Houston startups — from blockchain and software companies to startups with solutions in health care and oil and gas. Here are 10 that stood out throughout 2019.

Topl — a blockchain startup connecting every step of the way

Houston-based Topl can track almost anything using its blockchain technology. Getty Images

For Topl, 2019 was a year of laying the groundwork. In a January 2019 article on InnovationMap, Kim Raath, president of the Houston-based blockchain company, explained that Topl's mission originated out of the fact that 60 percent of the world lives on $10 a day — and it's in the poorest regions of the world where it's the hardest to get funding for a new business.

Raath says that in her experience backpacking and volunteering all around the world she learned that banks are too overwhelmed to evaluate these potential businesses. Topl has created a technology where banks can easily generate a report on these entrepreneurs that evaluates and makes a loan or investment recommendation on the business.

"We are a generation that wants a story," she says. "We want an origin, and don't want to be fooled. And, because you might be able to reduce the cost by having this transparency, you might be able to bring down the cost on both sides."

Later that year, the company closed a 20 percent oversubscribed $700,000 seed round. With the money, Topl will be able to grow its platforms, provide better product features, and increase marketing efforts. Topl's customers are drawn to the technology because of the business efficiency the blockchain adds to their supply chain, but they are also excited about how having this technology differentiates them from their competition. Raath says she's interested in growing Topl's ability to do joint marketing campaigns with their customers.

Incentifind — finding green incentives for commercial and residential building

Natalie Goodman founded Incentifind, which connects home builders and commercial developers with green incentives. Courtesy of Incentifind

When asked about the origin story of IncentiFind — a Houston-based startup that connects real estate developers and home builders with green construction incentives — founder Natalie Goodman doesn't mince words.

"We're a complete accident," Goodman tells InnovationMap in an interview in March. "I'm an architect. We didn't set out to have a startup."

IncentiFind's mission is to increase the amount of green developments and construction projects in the U.S. The company is equipped with a massive database of green incentives that are offered by utility, county, city, state and federal agencies. Many home builders or commercial developers don't take advantage of green incentives because they're simply not aware of them, Goodman says. Commercial developers can expect to spend around $1,500 with IncentiFind, while homeowners can expect to spend between $50 and $150.

Lazarus 3D — 3D printed organs to better train surgeons

Lazarus 3D is using 3D printing to help advance surgeons' skills. Photo via laz3d.com

It's pretty standard for surgeons in training to practice complicated surgeries on produce — slicing bananas open and sewing grapes back together. But for a pair of Baylor College of Medicine-educated doctors, that didn't seem like sufficient prep for working with living bodies; fruit surgery was not fruitful enough. In 2014, Drs. Jacques Zaneveld and Smriti Agrawal Zaneveld founded Lazarus3D to build a better training model — and layer by layer, they created models of abs and ribs and even hearts with a 3D printer.

"We adapted pre-existing 3D printing technology in a novel proprietary way that allows us to, overnight, build soft, silicone or hydrogel models of human anatomy," Jacques, who serves as CEO, tells InnovationMap in July. "They can be treated just like real tissue."

This year, the company grew to seven people and aims to expand even more to add to its sales and manufacturing teams. Having been funded mostly by friends and family investors, Lazarus3D plans enter its first equity round to raise $6 million, InnovationMap reported last summer.

Mental Health Match — connecting people to the right therapists

Ryan Schwartz realized online dating was easier than finding a therapist. He created a tool to change that. Courtesy of Mental Health Match

Nearly five years ago, Ryan Schwartz sat in a coffee shop in crisis mode. His mother had just died suddenly and he was struggling to find an appropriate therapist. Across the table, his friend sat making a profile on a dating app. Quickly, her endeavor was complete and she was ready to swipe right, but Schwartz was still on the hunt for mental help.

"In two minutes she could have a profile matching her with a partner potentially for the rest of her life and I was sitting there for hours and hours trying to find a therapist," he told InnovationMap in June. "I thought it should be easier to find a therapist than a life partner. That's what sent me on my journey."

That journey reached a watershed last month when Schwartz launched Mental Health Match, a website designed to pair patients with their ideal therapist. The idea gained traction as Schwartz described it to people he met and found that many said they had experienced similar difficulties in finding the right practitioner for their needs.

Grab — making ordering food at the airport easier

Houston-based Grab makes it so you're waiting in one less line at the airport. Getty Images

Most airport lines are unavoidable, but a Houston startup has cut out at least some of those lines with its mobile ordering app. Houston-based software company Grab was founded by Mark Bergsrud in 2015, who worked in senior leadership roles for almost 20 years at Continental Airlines and then United Airlines, following the merger. For Bergsrud, Grab feels like another major mobile game changer the industry experienced.

"I spent many years thinking about the travel experience and how to make it better and faster," Bergsrud told InnovationMap in July. "This feels like how mobile check in felt. There was a problem customers didn't know they had — check in wasn't that difficult anyway, but to be able to have that control, people love it."

Grab now has a presence in over 37 airports around the world, including Dallas and Austin though, ironically, not yet either of Houston's airports. Expansion is in the works for Grab, which closed a multimillion-dollar Series A round this year — London-based Collinson Group was the sole contributor.

NurseDash — An app that connects nurses to shifts

Houston-based NurseDash is the Uber of staffing nursing shifts in medical facilities. Photo via nursedash.com

Across the country, medical facilities are short on nurses. Agencies play a role in matchmaking nurses to open shifts, but agencies charge a high percentage for placement and lack transparency, says Andy Chen, former CFO for Nobilis Health Corporation. That's why he and Jakob Kohl created their app, NurseDash in 2017. The project manager for the app is in New York, but official headquarters in Houston's Galleria area, where a staff of five works with the team spread out around the world.

Since its debut, NurseDash has attracted 40 facilities in Houston, InnovationMap reported in May, including hospitals, surgery centers, and senior living, and about 400 nurses. Chen says he isn't sure just what to call his technology yet, but compares it to the ride hailing of Uber or Lyft and calls it "a virtual bulletin board."

Syzygy — hydrogen cells battery to minimize natural gas

Trevor Best, CEO of Syzygy Plasmonics, walked away from EarthX $100,000 richer. Photo via LinkedIn

A Houston technology company is doing something that, for many decades, wasn't thought to be possible. Syzygy Plasmonics is creating a hydrogen fuel cell technology that produces a cheaper source of energy that releases fewer carbon emissions. The hydrogen-fueled technology originated out of research done over two decades by two Rice University professors, Naomi Halas and Peter Nordlander.

Syzygy's technology, CEO Trevor Best told InnovationMap in August, is structured more like a battery than that of a combustion engine. Inside the technology, there are cells, lights, and mirrors making as bright as possible, which then spurs a reaction that creates energy. It has the potential to be cheaper — it's made with cheaper materials — and, of course, cleaner than traditional fueling technology with fewer carbon emissions released.

This new photocatalytic chemical reactor has the potential to shake up the industrial gas, chemical, and energy industries — something that hasn't gone unnoticed by investors. Syzygy just closed a $5.8 million Series A round, and the funds will allow for Syzygy to continue to develop its technology and grow its team. Best tells InnovationMap that he expects to launch a full-size pilot by the end of 2020 and is already in talks with potential clients who are interested in the technology for industrial purposes.

Volumetric — 3D printed human tissue

Houston researchers are commercializing their organ 3D printing technology. Jordan Miller/Rice University

There may come a time when you or someone you love is in need of a new pair of lungs. Or perhaps it's a liver. It's not a scenario anyone dreams of, but thanks to Houston company Volumetric, you may never end up on a waiting list. Instead, that organ is made to order and 3D printed using a mix of medical plastics and human cells.

And this possibility isn't necessarily in the distant future. On the cover of the May 3 issue of the journal Science, is a contraption that looks a bit like a futuristic beehive. It's a working air sac complete with blood vessels, the beginnings of a technology that is perhaps only a decade from being implanted in humans. And it was crafted on a 3D printer in Jordan Miller's lab at Rice University. Miller and his bioengineering graduate student Bagrat Grigoryan are primed to profit from their inventions.

In 2018, they started Volumetric Inc., a company that sells both the hydrogel solutions used for printing organs like theirs and the printers themselves. Touring Miller's lab in the Houston Medical Center is a visual timeline of his team's progress designing printers. The version being manufactured is a slick little number, small enough to fit under chemical exhaust hoods, but fitted with everything necessary to print living tissues. It's made and sold in cooperation with CellInk, a larger bioprinting company.

"Our technology is based on projection," Miller told InnovationMap in May. Specifically, it's stereolithography, a type of 3D printing that produces the finished product layer-by-layer. Shining colored light of the right intensity turns the polymers into a solid gel.

Voyager — Email-less communication tool for maritime shipping

Voyager, a Houston SaaS company, has received fresh funds to develop its bulk shipping software. Tom Fisk/Pexels

Houston software startup Voyager is making waves in its quest to improve efficiency — and stem billions of dollars in losses — in the maritime bulk-shipping business. Now, it's got some fresh capital to help it achieve that mission.

InnovationMap reported in August that Houston-based Voyager revealed it secured $1.5 million in seed funding from four investors from around the world: Austin-based ATX Venture Partners, Houston- and California-based Blue Bear Capital, New York City-based GreenHawk Capital, and Oman-based Phaze Ventures. Previous investors include Boulder, Colorado-based Techstars and Spring-based Knightsgate Ventures.

With its software-as-a-service offering, Voyager aims to modernize the workflows of operators in the maritime bulk-commodities industry. The company says its technology will become more vital as autonomous shipping and internet- and Internet of Things-enabled cargo vessels grow in popularity. Voyager's technology enables all communication tied to a shipment to be handled via its web dashboard and app, essentially creating a one-stop shop for people who need to track messages about maritime bulk shipments.

"With Voyager, what it allows companies to do is essentially have all of those counter parties working together in a shared environment to manage the voyage together — entirely email free," Matthew Costello, CEO, tells InnovationMap in December.

Galen Data — cloud-based platform for connecting medical devices to the internet

Houston-based Galen Data is growing its clientbase and just formed two new partnerships with medical device companies. Photo via galendata.com

Educated as an engineer, Chris DuPont has stepped outside his professional comfort zone to generate funding for his Houston-based startup, Galen Data Inc. DuPont's pool of technical contacts in Houston is "wide and deep," he says, but his pool of financial contacts had been shallow.

Overcoming obstacles in Houston's business waters, DuPont has raised two rounds of angel funding — he declines to say how much — that have enabled Galen Data to develop and market its cloud-based platform for connecting medical devices to the internet, including pacemakers and glucose monitors. DuPont is the startup's co-founder and CEO.

Galen Data's patent-pending technology lets medical device manufacturers tailor the cloud-based software to their unique needs. DuPont says his company's software is geared toward medical devices that are outside, not inside, hospitals and other healthcare facilities. He declines to divulge how many customers the startup has.

Hatched within Houston-based Tietronix Software Inc., DuPont's previous employer, Galen Data launched in 2016 but didn't roll out its first product until 2018. Galen Data's emergence comes as the market for internet-connected mobile health apps keeps growing. One forecast envisions the global space for mobile health exceeding $94 billion by 2023.

"We want to be at the forefront of that technology curve," DuPont tells InnovationMap in May. "We might be six months early, we might be a year early, but it's starting to happen."

It might come as no surprise that Houston, home to the largest medical center in the world, has many impressive health startups. Photo by Dwight C. Andrews/Greater Houston Convention and Visitors Bureau

4 Houston health startups to look out for

Health tech

Houston's growing life sciences industry has been a topic of discussion of late — and it's pretty obvious why.

In March, Houston was named the No. 2 top city for an emerging life sciences market, according to CBRE data. Houston was also named the No. 2 city for STEM jobs, per a report from American Enterprise Institute's Housing Center, which cited the city's growing life science industry as a factor. Even Amazon, which recently opened a Tech Hub in Houston, credited the city's life sciences as a reason for Houston's selection.

In fact, according to a report from the Greater Houston Partnership, Houston has over a fifth of the nation's clinical trials last year. With health care innovation abound in town, here are four startups to keep an eye on.

Integrated Bionics

Stephane Smith wants his company, Integrated Bionics, and its sports tech sensor to be a big win for Houston. Courtesy of Integrated Bionics

It may have taken a couple attempts, but Stephane Smith has created a booming sports wearable business that ships products across the United States and the world. Integrate Bionics produces the Titan Sensor — a wearable device that syncs GPS with video and provides athletic metrics at an attainable price. Most of the company's customers are soccer teams primarily in the collegiate space — with some professional and even youth teams. Smith says the company has a firm footing within soccer because that's where this technology really started.

With fresh funds from Houston-based Work America Capital, Integrated Bionics is on a path to scale and grow its product's capabilities.

"We're going to continue relentless innovation — doing things that no one is expecting and helping coaches with things not even on the radar," Smith tells InnovationMap. "We'll going to be rolling out new capabilities and features that have traditionally been relegated to high-end systems or that haven't even existed before."

Read more about Integrated Bionics here.

InformAI

InformAI can use its data technology to help doctors with preventative care and diagnoses. Courtesy of InformAI

Health care is one of the industries where data management might get a "needs improvement" on its report card. Hospitals everywhere have tons of data, and they aren't using it to their full potential. Houston-based InformAI is looking to change this within the Texas Medical Center.

Jim Havelka, founder and CEO, started the company in 2017, and created a new technology that allows hospitals and medical establishments better access to its own data – which translates into more effective diagnoses and preventative care. Havelka saw a need within the medical industry for this type of service.

"There were several things missing," says Havelka. "One was access to very large data sets, because it wasn't really until the last five or 10 years that digitalization of data, especially in the healthcare vertical became more widespread and available in a format that's usable. The second convergence was the technology, the ability to process very large data sets."

Read more about InformAI here.

Mental Health Match

Ryan Schwartz realized online dating was easier than finding a therapist. He created a tool to change that. Courtesy of Mental Health Match

If only finding a therapist was as easy as finding a date in a world where dating apps are a dime a dozen. Ryan Schwartz realized as he sat in a coffee shop with a friend making a connection online, it should be that easy.

"In two minutes she could have a profile matching her with a partner potentially for the rest of her life and I was sitting there for hours and hours trying to find a therapist," he recalls. "I thought it should be easier to find a therapist than a life partner. That's what sent me on my journey."

That journey reached a watershed last month when Schwartz launched Mental Health Match, a website designed to pair patients with their ideal therapist. The idea gained traction as Schwartz described it to people he met and found that many said they had experienced similar difficulties in finding the right practitioner for their needs.

Read more about Mental Health Match here.

Lazarus 3D

Lazarus 3D is using 3D printing to help advance surgeons' skills. Photo via laz3d.com

It's 2019 and surgeons are still using the same training tools they have used for decades: produce.

Two Baylor College of Medicine-educated doctors thought that sewing up grapes and slicing bananas was a bit antiquated. Drs. Jacques Zaneveld and Smriti Agrawal Zaneveld founded Lazarus3D to build a better training model — and layer by layer, they created models of abs and ribs and even hearts with a 3D printer.

"We adapted pre-existing 3D printing technology in a novel proprietary way that allows us to, overnight, build soft, silicone or hydrogel models of human anatomy," says Jacques, who serves as CEO. "They can be treated just like real tissue."

Read more about Lazarus 3D here.

This four Houstonians saw a need in their industries and — rather than accepting the status quo — found a solution. Courtesy photos

4 Houston innovators to know this week

Who's who

The crux of innovation is identifying a problem and using your skills to ideate a solution. Each of these four innovators had their "aha" moments that led to their research and development moments, and now to where they are today.

Smriti Agrawal Zaneveld and Jacques Zaneveld, founders of Lazarus 3D

Photo courtesy of Lazarus 3D

It seemed a little antiquated that surgeons were still practicing their techniques on various fruits. Baylor College of Medicine-educated Drs. Jacques Zaneveld and Smriti Agrawal Zaneveld founded Lazarus3D in 2014 to build a better training model — and layer by layer, they created models of abs and ribs and even hearts with a 3D printer.

"We adapted pre-existing 3D printing technology in a novel proprietary way that allows us to, overnight, build soft, silicone or hydrogel models of human anatomy," says Jacques, who serves as CEO. "They can be treated just like real tissue."

Read the full story here.

Guy de Carufel, founder and CEO of Cognitive Space

Photo courtesy of Guy du Carufel

Guy du Carufel knows that in just a matter of years, there will be so many satellites orbiting the early and collecting data, there's not going to be enough people to monitor them. And, frankly, people shouldn't have to. That's why du Carufel created an artificial intelligence-enabled, cloud-based technology that can track and manage each of these satellite clusters on behalf of the cluster's owner.

"We're currently at an inflection point where the satellite industry is expected to grow up to five folds in the next 10 years because of the large companies building up these satellites," du Carufel says. "There are around 2,000 satellites active right now, and that's expected to grow to over 10,000 in the next 10 years."

Read the full story here.

Jim Havelka, founder and CEO of InformAI

Photo courtesy of InformAI

Hospitals and medical centers can be tough places to keep track of data — but that doesn't have to be the case. Jim Havelka founded InformAI to help doctors and health care providers tap into their data to provide better diagnoses and preventative care.

"There were several things missing," says Havelka. "One was access to very large data sets, because it wasn't really until the last five or 10 years that digitalization of data, especially in the health care vertical became more widespread and available in a format that's usable. The second convergence was the technology, the ability to process very large data sets."

Lazarus 3D is using 3D printing to help advance surgeons' skills. Photo via laz3d.com

Houston company is using 3D printing to enhance surgeon training and prevent avoidable patient deaths

Practice makes perfect

It is no surprise that, when a company offered life-like bladders for medical training, Houston urologists jumped at the opportunity — many had to learn the surgery by operating on bell peppers.

This sort of produce practice is the traditional method for teaching surgeons. Before a doctor ever makes an incision on a living person, they'll practice surgery on food — slicing bananas open and sewing grapes back together.

But for a pair of Baylor College of Medicine-educated doctors, that didn't seem like sufficient prep for working with living bodies; fruit surgery was not fruitful enough. In 2014, Drs. Jacques Zaneveld and Smriti Agrawal Zaneveld founded Lazarus3D to build a better training model — and layer by layer, they created models of abs and ribs and even hearts with a 3D printer.

"We adapted pre-existing 3D printing technology in a novel proprietary way that allows us to, overnight, build soft, silicone or hydrogel models of human anatomy," says Jacques, who serves as CEO. "They can be treated just like real tissue."

This isn't 3D printing's foray in medicine. In 1999, doctors in North Carolina implanted the first 3D-printed bladder in human bodies — they covered the synthetic organs in the patients' cells so that their bodies accepted them. Since, researchers have continued to find uses for the technology in the field, printing other organs and making prosthetic limbs.

But the Lazarus3D founders felt like medical training was lagging behind. Even cadavers, which medical schools also use to prepare doctors for surgery, don't represent a healthy human body or the diseased state of a hospital patient, said Smriti, who works as the research director.

The pair turned their kitchen into a printing lab and set to work, creating life-like models of human organs. They didn't have to go far after their first successes to find potential buyers — they just went to Starbucks. In a coffeeshop in the heart of the Medical Center, they talked loudly about their product until the neighborhood doctors and researchers took interest and gathered around.

Over the next few years, the Lazarus3D team pooled resources and contacts and, a summer after opening, they moved out of their kitchen and into an office. They now are a Capital Factory portfolio company and have partnerships with Texas Children's, Baylor College of Medicine, MD Anderson Cancer Center, and others, providing organs for specialized training — and the more they expand, the more they're able to prepare doctors for invasive, sometimes dangerous procedures.

"There are over 400,000 deaths annually in the U.S. due to medical error," Smriti says. "Not all of them are due to surgical mistakes, but all of these, nonetheless, were preventable."

The models can also be used for explaining to patients in a visual way what surgeries they're about to receive — the black and grey smears on an MRI scan might not actually help a patient understand much about what a surgeon is going to do to their body. In 2018, Lazarus3D won a contest with NASA on the potential for 3D printing organs in space, so that major surgeries might be performed there. And the printed organs can also be used by researchers to safely develop new surgery methods.

This year, the company grew to seven people and aims to expand even more to add to its sales and manufacturing teams. Having been funded mostly by friends and family investors, Lazarus3D plans enter its first equity round this year. They're raising $6 million.

"Every generation in medicine, people look back at what was done before and think 'Man, that was barbaric,'" Jacques said. "Fifty years from now, we're going to look back and think, 'Man, back then we used to just give someone a patient to learn how to do physical skills on? That seems crazy.'"

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Houston startup unveils its innovative leather alternative at the rodeo

sustainable fashion

Last month’s Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo stirred up another rootin’ tootin’ time for Houstonians and beyond.

But before the annual event galloped into the sunset, there were quite a few memorable innovations on display, with one notably coming from Rheom Materials.

The Houston-based pioneer of next-generation materials presented its scalable, bio-based alternative known as Shorai, a 93 percent bio-based leather, through two custom, western-inspired outfits that showed off cowboy flair through a sustainable lens.

“I'm a Houstonian, I love the rodeo,” Megan Beck, Rheom’s business development manager, recalls. “We're sitting there talking about it one day and we're like, ‘Okay, we've got to do something with this leather to show people how good it can look in apparel, how easy it is to wear.’”

Buoyed by the idea that their materials are meant to “change your impact, not your life,” Rheom captured the real-life energy of their bio-leather outfits under the rodeo’s neon lights in a short commercial video and photo shoot with models donning the samples, while dancing and enjoying the festivities. Rheom created a skirt, a leather jacket, and then a leather top for the look.

“Houston is such a vibrant city,” Beck says. “There's so much innovation here. I think the rodeo is just a really, really great example of that. And so we wanted to take this opportunity to take some of these garments out there and go on the slide, go on some of the rides, go into the wine garden and go dancing, because if you've ever felt some of the materials in the market in this space, they're very stiff, you can't really move in them, they're a little fragile, they kind of fall apart.”

Not only do the models in the video look fashionable, but they also look comfortable, and the leather looks natural and supple. And to the naked eye, Shorai appears to be like the leather most wearers are accustomed to.

“What we really wanted to showcase in this is the energy and the movement of the leather, and to show people how good it can look in apparel, and how easy it is to wear, which I think we were able to accomplish,” Beck says.

Next up, Beck says Rheom wants to scale production of Shorai, the Japanese word for “future,” at a competitive price point, while also reducing its carbon footprint by 80 percent when compared to synthetic leather. According to Beck, Rheom plans to see Shorai products come to market sometime this year.

“We have companies globally right now that are testing materials, that are prototyping, that are making garments, making handbags and footwear, and making eyewear because we have a plastic, as well,” Beck says. “So, this year, I do believe we'll start seeing those products actually come to market, which is very, very exciting for us.”

And with their large-scale production partner already set up for Shorai, Rheom plans to start its first production run of the product soon.

“In April, we'll actually be starting our first production run,” Beck says. “We'll be doing it at full scale, full width, and a full run of materials. So over the next five years, we're only going to just try to increase that capacity.”

Texas is home to second largest population of millionaires in the U.S.

The Millionaires Club

Tilman Fertitta, Elon Musk, Alice Walton, and Jerry Jones are members of the billionaires club in Texas. But just how many millionaires does the Lone Star State boast?

Altogether, 73,930 Texans were classified as millionaire tax filers in 2022, according to an analysis of IRS data by digital marketing firm Hennessey Digital. (For context, that millionaire count is just a few thousand shy of the entire population of Missouri City.) This figure puts Texas in the No. 2 spot for the country’s biggest population of millionaire taxpayers, behind first-place California.

However, if you crunch the figures a different way, Texas’ millionaire status isn’t quite as impressive, demonstrating that not everything is bigger in Texas. Texas ranks 10th among the states with the highest proportions of millionaire taxpayers, the study indicates. According to Hennessey Digital’s calculations, 27.1 of every 10,000 Texas tax filers reported adjusted gross income of at least $1 million for the 2022 tax year.

“The state’s booming economy, driven by energy, technology, and business-friendly policies, contributes to its wealthy population,” says Hennessey Digital.

Forbes ranked 43 Texans among the 400 wealthiest Americans last year, with Elon Musk topping the list. Houston hospitality king, Rockets owner, and newly appointed ambassador to Italy Tilman Fertitta was the 12th richest Texan and the 99th richest person in the United States, according to Forbes.

Which state comes out on top for the largest share of millionaire taxpayers? Connecticut, with 44.76 millionaire tax filers for every 10,000 filers, the Hennessey study shows. A number of well-to-do Connecticut suburbs are situated just a commuter train ride away from New York City, where bankers, brokers, and others pull in the big bucks. (Connecticut sits two spots above New York state in the millionaire ranking.)

The numbers in the study “highlight the diverse economic landscapes across our nation. States with favorable tax policies and thriving industries tend to attract more high-income earners,” says Jason Hennessey, CEO of Hennessey Digital. “Understanding these patterns can provide valuable insights for businesses and individuals making decisions about where to live, work, or invest.”

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This story originally appeared on our sister site, CultureMap.com.

Remote workers in Houston earn far more than commuters, data shows

by the numbers

In the Houston metro area, it pays to work from home.

Data published recently by the U.S. Census Bureau shows remote workers in the Houston metro earn 40 percent more than their commuting counterparts. For remote workers in the Houston area, median earnings stood at $67,500 in 2023, compared with $48,200 for other workers.

Federal data cited by Visual Capitalist indicates 11.8 percent of the Houston area’s labor pool, or nearly 460,000 people, were remote workers in 2023.

In the Dallas metro area, the difference in median earnings between remote workers and non-remote workers is even more stark. According to Census Bureau data, remote workers there earned $77,000 in 2023 — 50.7 percent more than the $51,100 for traditional workers.

Why the wide gap in pay? The Census Bureau says remote workers are more likely to be older, more likely to be white and less likely to live below the poverty line. All of these traits contribute to higher income.

Among home-based workers in the country’s five biggest metros, median earnings for remote workers were highest in the New York and Chicago areas (over $80,000) and lowest in the Houston area (under $70,000), according to the Census Bureau.

The five-metro comparison also reveals that the Houston area had the highest share (6.8 percent) of all workers, both remote and non-remote, living below the federal poverty level.

In a recent Substack post, urban planner Bill Fulton notes that remote workers in major cities typically earn 50 percent to 80 percent more than other workers do. He declares that “remote workers are far more affluent than everybody else. They are, of course, office workers, not blue-collar or service workers, and they tend to be more highly educated.”