How this startup leveraged friends and family investment for an oversubscribed round of funding

guest column

COVID-19 might have thrown a wrench in this health tech startup's fundraising plans, but it found a way to close an oversubscribed round anyways. Photo via Getty Images

When I wrote about fundraising early this year, I knew that I would be raising a round shortly, but had no idea I would be doing it in a changed COVID-19 world. I have experienced two unexpected recessions as an entrepreneur — in 2001 and 2008 — and each time causing huge struggles for entrepreneurs to raise funds. That is when I developed the mindset of acting like a desert rat, surviving with little help, learning to tap into the resources around you to survive and even thrive. Little did I know what was coming in March when the COVID-19 shutdown started.

Solenic Medical Inc. is a medical device company developing an innovative non-invasive treatment for infected metallic implants in the body. Using technology invented at the University of Texas Southwestern, Solenic will leverage the unique properties of alternating magnetic fields generated from external coils to eradicate biofilm on the surface of medical implants.

This non-invasive treatment addresses a major complication of various surgeries, such as knee and hip replacements, as well as in trauma related implants such as plates and rods. There are certainly challenges to fundraising for medical device companies, but each technology arena has its own challenges that I won't go into here.

The Solenic Medical team knew we needed to raise a round early this year, building upon the progress achieved since our founding investment in early 2019. The question was what type and size a round to raise.

We knew we were close to taking some valuable steps, but needed a just a little more time and funding to get there, at which point we figured we would be able to step up our valuation greatly. We decided on a modest $500,000 convertible note round, to help us accomplish at least a portion of the following items:

  • Recruit a reputable outside board member
  • Complete a planned large animal study stepping up from previous mice studies
  • Complete submission of a Breakthrough Device application to the FDA
  • Close our $1.3 million NIH grant and/or other non-dilutive funding
  • Fine tune simulation approaches to optimize the transducer design
  • File new intellectual property

We knew that some combination of these would occur in the succeeding months and would make it easier for Solenic to raise further funds.

The first domino was the on-boarding of an experienced technology executive from Virginia to join our board. The large animal study was delayed when the COVID-19 shutdown started, but our Breakthrough application and the grant application review started as the team went into virtual work mode. Progress was made on the simulations and drafting our next patent. The dominos were starting to fall in spite of the shutdown.

My philosophy was to treat the round as five different type of efforts, in pretty much five equal portions.

  • The first 20 percent in a round is always the hardest, even in closely held friends and family round. The first check regardless of size is always hard as often investors very interested in the round will wait for others to move first.
  • The second 20 percent is not much easier, still requiring a leap of faith by the investor.
  • The magic starts happening at 40 percent, where momentum picks up as you approach halfway and beyond.
  • At 60 percent you reach real momentum, where those investors who may have been waiting to move for a while now start moving.
  • At 80 percent you pick up investors who move quickly worried about missing out before the round closes.
  • With luck, you get enough momentum to oversubscribe the round and have to make the call to go beyond your target funds. For a quick hint on where I standard at that point, there's a saying that you never turn down money.

It was strange picking up the fundraising activity via zoom meetings, and it got off to a slow start as the initial circumstances of the new COVID-19 world settled in. Following my own advice from the January article, I started strategizing my communications, who might be the first check and first movers in first 20 percent, then the next 20 percent and so forth. For a friends and family round you start with your board as champions for the round, founders and management. No one is likely to be more committed and likely to get things started generally, much less in unusual financial times like a pandemic shutdown.

With an institutional co-founder like VIC Technology Venture Development and a passionate board we were able to jumpstart the round the round with $110,000 in commitments. This was quickly followed $100,000 from friends and family of board or management team members. Note that "quickly" in a pandemic was three months that in normal times might have taken only a month or so. Now that we had crossed that magic 40 percent hurdle, things started picking up speed, where members of the VIC Investor Network added individual investments totaling $140,000 to pass the next hurdle of 60 percent within another six weeks of individual presentations and discussions.

Momentum accelerated with friends and family and management team members stepping up to get us to 80 percent within few weeks. At the time of this article we are over-subscribed with more decisions to come. That is a great problem to have as things really picked up speed recently.

Though the final tally is to be determined the mix for this friends and family round looks to be pretty typical to past experiences

  • Board & Management – 27 percent
  • Family – 27 percent
  • Friends – 22 percent
  • Others – 25 percent

Because of the shutdown, this pandemic round has been unusual and at times frustrating, with some highly vocal and interested prospects going strangely silent as soon as the shutdown started, while others moved more slowly than originally expected. Regardless of how things transpired, it turned out largely familiar. As usual, the people you know the best and that know and trust you the most are the ones that are mostly likely come through for you. Building your network to increase the size of that pool is what you do far before a round starts.

Later rounds will be quite different, but the same 20 percent momentum stages will apply. It's a matter of building and nurturing a network of prospects in advance. Larger rounds involve an "institutional" friends and family network that you have known for a while. That work begins long before you start developing them as prospect for an open investment round. By the time this article is published, we expect to have the final funds of this round in the bank but have already started building relationships for the next round. It never stops, but in some ways that is the fun part of it to meet new people to share your startup's story.

------

James Y. Lancaster is the Texas branch manager for Arkansas-based VIC Technology Venture Development and interim CEO for Solenic Medical. Lancaster, who lives in College Station, oversees business there, in Dallas, and in Houston.

This week's Houston innovators to know roundup includes Harvin Moore, James Lancaster, and Joshua Baer. Courtesy photos

3 Houston innovators to know this week

who's who

Today starts the Houston Tech Rodeo — a week full of innovation-focused events — and its sure to corral entrepreneurs and investors across the city spur discussions of innovation and technology.

This week's Houston innovators to know includes the man at the helm of the organization behind the Tech Rodeo, plus two investors that are making moves in Houston as well as statewide.

Harvin Moore, president of Houston Exponential

Courtesy of HX

Houston Exponential has helped to coordinate over 30 innovation-focused events for the inaugural Houston Tech Rodeo, which will take place March 2 to 6 — in coordination with the start of the Houston Livestock Show And Rodeo — and will feature panels about diversity, reverse pitch events with startups and accelerators, on-stage office hours, and more.

"Really one of the things that makes a tech ecosystem like Houston really work and purr is when people get together, and people are able to bump into each other and bounce ideas off each other. Businesses do well, ideas thrive, and things happen," Harvin Moore, president of HX, says on the Houston Innovators Podcast. "We basically saw this as an opportunity to let the startup development organizations in town schedule their events around a particular week that really look good on a calendar."

Click here to read more and stream the episode.

James Y. Lancaster, Texas branch manager for Arkansas-based VIC Technology Venture Development

Courtesy of VIC

James Lancaster, Texas branch manager for Arkansas-based VIC Technology Venture Development, knows most startups fail for one of three reasons — no market need, running out of money, and not having a strong team. In his most recent guest article for InnovationMap, Lancaster dives into this third reason with key things founders must think about to give their startup the best shot at success.

"Like market need, evaluating the management team is on virtually every venture capitalist's list of what they look for in their target investments and you need to get it right," Lancaster says.

Click here to read more.

Joshua Baer, founder and CEO of Capital Factory

Courtesy of Capital Factory

While not technically a Houstonian, this Austinite gets an honorary title for his work here. Austin-based accelerator and investment organization Capital Factory recently merged with Station Houston, and CEO and Founder Joshua Baer says it's just the beginning of his focus on Houston startups.

"In total right now, we have 40 companies ever that have joined our accelerator from Houston, which is still a pretty significant number," he tells InnovationMap. "This year, we expect more than 40 companies to join the accelerator from Houston."

Click here to read more.Click here to read more.

Teamwork can make the dream work, but lack of a solid team can be a startup's downfall. Pexels

Here's what Houston startups need to keep in mind when building their teams

Guest column

The top two reasons for startup failure are no market need and running out of money, respectively. But the third reason for failure is not having the right team in place. Like market need, evaluating the management team is on virtually every venture capitalist's list of what they look for in their target investments and you need to get it right.

It is well known that new technologies have a limited window of opportunity to succeed and there are rarely second chances, whether choosing the right strategy, market, customers, partners, or raising rounds of financing. If a particular window is missed a chance to pivot may be available, but that typically requires a good, experienced and nimble team that is right for the overall opportunity.

Luck and timing are factors largely out of your control in a startup, but good-to-great teams are capable of dealing with fast changing conditions or lessons learned along the way.

There's not one "right team"

It is easy to say you need the right team, but the same team is not the right team for every startup. Any team needs some basic skills, and of course have the ability to deliver a solution to meet its customer's needs.

In addition to a diverse technical team, a startup needs different skill sets, including various business, professional and soft skills. It is obvious that software is different than medical devices, but within "software" there are a wide variety of skills needed from user interface to security and everything in between. Within medical devices, the variety ranges beyond technology from working with the FDA to medical reimbursement.

Similarities between standard business processes like customer billing, collections and capital asset management often do not vary much across some otherwise pretty diverse businesses. On top of that, the needs of the team change over time as startups progress from concept, to prototype development to launch and through growth phases.

Having experience with many different startups, I have had some recurring team members with whom I worked with again in my next venture. I have also experienced significant turnover of individuals and growth within individuals that where ready for a new challenge to keep them motivated. The right team varies from venture to venture.

Know your industry

One lesson is to have a few cornerstone roles in the organization. First learned in my consulting days, a talented team member might serve in a kind of cornerstone role where you know that job is "solved" and you will not have to worry about it. You then complement and build around him, adding more experience in a complementary role if the first individual has raw talent and enthusiasm. You would add young talent with plenty of room for growth around an experienced individual that has the ability to mentor those around them. No one way exists to create a good team, other than the best practice of mixing experience, talent and diversity in creative ways based on who based on availability.

However, patterns should be identified and assessed to complement customers when deep engagement is a key part of your model or with partners, distributors, channels, or other strategic parts of your extended business model. Some customers will accept less experienced staff; others will not. Some markets can be targeted successfully by inexperienced sales or customer service representatives, while others require field experience or at a minimum extensive targeted training.

Finding support

Beyond patterns, consider some other best practices that are appropriate for various markets; for example, the risk incurred by having an inexperienced FDA process lead in an FDA regulated product. Having little real experience with FDIC, SEC or similar relevant federal or state agencies creates a lot of risk in FinTech companies. In any startup, some areas can be easily contracted out while others need to be core internal strengths, even if developed over time.

That last word is key, the "time" component of startups. Early stages of a startup have parallels to my consulting days. It is a project that is managed like any other project, balancing the big three assets: resources, money and time. Any project is a balancing act of acquiring and managing those three assets, at least when you take out administrative details like payroll and the like. The next stage is more operational in nature, whether stabilizing operations or managing for growth, but it is common for a startup to have two or more CEOs between founding and exit as needs change.

Since VIC primarily is focused on university technology startups, the inventor is often a university researcher with decades of experience in the field of the invention. We follow a best practice of bringing in one of our senior team members as CEO, an experienced business savvy entrepreneur who complements the inventor well in those early technology de-risking phases.

We support those key team members with a shared service team to handle finance, accounting, legal, websites and more, outsourcing specific areas of expertise like intellectual property in a given technical area. We then fill out gaps with select hires. Over time, we work ourselves out of a job when the technology has progressed to a point that different skills are needed, such as handing off to a growth-stage CEO.

------

James Y. Lancaster is the Texas branch manager for Arkansas-based VIC Technology Venture Development. Lancaster, who lives in College Station, oversees business there, in Dallas, and in Houston.

This week's innovators to know are focused on bringing startup programming and venture capital to Houston. Courtesy photos

3 Houston innovators to know this week

who's who

This past week has been full of exciting innovation news in Houston — from big fundraising round closings to a new unicorn coming out of the Bayou City.

Houston innovators to know this week include a new program director for Houston's newest startup accelerator, a venture capital fund leader, and more.

Eléonore Cluzel, program director of gBETA Houston program as director

Courtesy of gBETA Houston

Houston's newest accelerator program, gBETA, named its new local leader. Eléonore Cluzel will lead the gBETA Houston program as director, and will be the point person for the program in the region for the two annual cohorts. Previously, Cluzel worked for Business France mentoring French startups and small businesses. In her new position, she says she's excited to support founders across all industries and foster innovation.

"We're adding another resource for local founders to grow their startups and to raise money, and not have to move to Silicon Valley to do it," she says. "We will also serve as a connector, introducing founders to mentors and investors within the community and across gener8tor broader network." Click here to read more.

Sandy Wallis, managing director of the HX Venture Fund

Courtesy of Sandy Wallis

After 20 years in the venture capital world, Sandy Guitar Wallis has seen the evolution of investing — on both coasts and here in Houston as well. Now, as managing director of the HX Venture Fund, Wallis leads the fund of funds that's investing in VCs around the country in order to bring investment to Houston.

"We have raised a fund of funds with the HX Venture Fund, and we're deploying that capital across probably 10 venture capital funds over time," Wallis explains on the most recent episode of the Houston Innovators Podcast. "Each one of those funds, will invest in 15 to 20 underlying private companies. So, at the end of the day, HX Venture Fund 1 will have exposure to 10 VC funds, as an example, and — by virtue of those investments — maybe 300 private companies." Click here to read more.

James Y. Lancaster, Texas branch manager for Arkansas-based VIC Technology Venture Development

Photo courtesy of VIC

Startups fail — and there are a number of reasons why that is. James Y. Lancaster, who serves as Texas branch manager for Arkansas-based VIC Technology Venture Development, writes in a guest column for InnovationMap about the second most common reason for startup failure: funding.

"A key part of the startup CEO's job is to understand how much total cash remains on hand and whether it is enough to carry the startup towards a milestone that can lead to successful financing as well as a positive cash flow," Lancaster writes. "Just as important is how to allocate their time and efforts to the fundraising process along the way." Click here to read more.

The second most common reason for startup failure is running out of funds. A Texas expert has tips for avoiding that downfall. Getty Images

Failing to fundraise can be the downfall of Houston startups — here's what you need to know

Guest column

Startups are pulling outsized financing rounds and debt acquisitions at an unprecedented rate despite the high 80 percent failure rate of startups overall. Among the three primary reasons why startups tend to fail, running out of cash falls in the number two spot on the list at 29 percent — following no market need.

But startups need to recognize that their time and a strategic fundraising effort are tied together as critical resources to allocate properly to drive their fundraising efforts.

Despite a multitude of ideas and approaches in the pursuit of the very elusive product-market fit and monetization, the majority of startups fail to raise funds or run out of cash after initial fundraising success. For the startup to be successful, it is imperative that funds, finances, and related resources are allocated productively and precisely.

A key part of the startup CEO's job is to understand how much total cash remains on hand and whether it is enough to carry the startup towards a milestone that can lead to successful financing as well as a positive cash flow. Just as important is how to allocate their time and efforts to the fundraising process along the way.

A constant battle

For starters, valuations of a startup do not change linearly over time. Simply because it was twelve months since raising a series A round does not mean that it will be easier to raise more money or be ready for a step-up in valuation. To reach an increase in valuation, a company must achieve certain key milestones that are relevant to showing progress to market and in most investors eye's progress towards monetization.

It is important to understand what potential investors think is worthy of a step up, but generally valuation is pretty flat in between inflection points where key milestones are reached that earn a big increase.

Active vs. passive investment pursuits

Given that it often takes six to nine months and two-thirds of a CEO's time during a major round of fundraising, optimally you should align progress points into major milestones where efforts can be concentrated for fundraising success approaching the inflection points. That does not mean that the CEO can ignore fundraising in between those major milestones, but should think about waves of active and passive fundraising activities.

Active fundraising is obvious, which is the typical efforts to craft a pitch, meet with investors, nurture investor prospects into lead and following investor types. Most of the effort should be put into the early investors that will lead the round as the first checks are always the hardest.

From my experience rounds develop their own momentum when reaching about 40 percent of their target and even more when reaching 60 percent as long as the prospective investor pool is large enough. However, the CEO cannot ignore the company's progress while the raise is actively underway, as they will typically meet with prospective investors multiple times who will want to hear about progress each time.

Passive fundraising is less obvious, which happens in the gaps in between active fundraising where one round closes and before the next round starts. The primary passive activity is general investor networking, where the CEO should be out expanding their network, meeting new prospects and trying to identify the mostly likely early investors or best fit for the company.

I'm not suggesting this is really a passive activity, as it takes a lot of work. But this should be an ongoing between rounds. This passive effort gives the CEO a chance to put most of their emphasis on the progress of the company to the next milestones, but avoids a cold start to the next fundraising round.

Regardless, there are two best practices in this passive mode. First, use networking techniques to identify good prospective investors for your company and two to work on getting referrals to investors well before an actual fundraising round is open. Getting a referral is obviously to your advantage, because it takes you out of cold-calling mode that has a low success rate.

Meeting an investor while you are not fundraising takes the pressure off both the CEO and investor and gives them a chance to get to know each other personally. Again, many will not be your round leaders or champions to other investors, but this lower pressure effort gives investors a chance to listen and reach out to potential experts in their networks to validate the problem and your solution.

With the relationship established and your solution validation received, moving to an active discussion about investment comes more naturally as well as targeting of the best lead investor candidates leading to due diligence, negotiation and closing the funds.

Within a technology development firm like my firm, VIC, we have the benefit of "always-on" VIC Investor Network that we are constantly working to refresh and expand. Because of our large portfolio, seventeen companies at the time of writing this, there is a good chance that almost any life science investor can find something that suits their interest, experience, or passions.

Each member of the firm can allocate their time between active and passive efforts for the companies they are most closely involved with while still providing a wide portfolio of other companies that might be of interest to a prospective investor. Even with a portfolio of companies, the same concepts of active and passive efforts apply.

------

James Y. Lancaster is the Texas branch manager for Arkansas-based VIC Technology Venture Development. Lancaster, who lives in College Station, oversees business there, in Dallas, and in Houston.

This week's top innovation stories include a new coworking space announce its plan to pop up in East Downtown. Courtesy of Common Desk

5 most popular innovation stories in Houston this week

What's trending

Editor's note: Halloweek was a scary one for Houston baseball, but the innovation world fared just fine. A Texas coworking company announced plans for a Houston location, innovators to know, The Cannon Houston's grand opening, and more top news from this week.

Ad Placement 300x100
Ad Placement 300x600

CultureMap Emails are Awesome

Property Showcase

Fast-growing Houston-based geothermal energy co. secures $255M in additional funding

show me the money

A Houston company that's responding to rising energy demand by harnessing geothermal energy through its technology has again secured millions in funding. The deal brings Fervo's total funding secured this year to around $600 million.

Fervo Energy announced that it has raised $255 million in new funding and capital availability. The $135 million corporate equity round was led by Capricorn’s Technology Impact Fund II with participating investors including Breakthrough Energy Ventures, CalSTRS, Congruent Ventures, CPP Investments, DCVC, Devon Energy, Galvanize Climate Solutions, Liberty Mutual Investments, Mercuria, and Sabanci Climate Ventures.

The funding will go toward supporting Fervo's ongoing and future geothermal projects.

“The demand for 24/7 carbon-free energy is at an all-time high, and Fervo is one of the only companies building large projects that will come online before the end of the decade,” Fervo CEO and Co-Founder Tim Latimer says in a news release. “Investors recognize that Fervo’s ability to get to scale quickly is vital in an evolving market that is seeing unprecedented energy demand from AI and other sources.”

Additionally, Fervo secured a $120 million letter of credit and term loan facility from Mercuria, an independent energy and commodity group that previously invested in the company.

“In surveying power markets across the U.S. today, the need for next-generation geothermal is undeniable,” Brian Falik, group chief investment officer of Mercuria, adds. “We believe in Fervo not just because their EGS approach is cost-effective, commercially viable, and already being deployed at scale, but because they set ambitious targets and consistently deliver.”

In February, Fervo secured $244 million in a financing round led by Devon Energy, and in September, the company received a $100 million bridge loan for the first phase of its ongoing project in Utah. This project, known as Project Cape, represents a 100x growth opportunity for Fervo, as Latimer explained to InnovationMap earlier this year. As of now, Project Cape is fully permitted up to 2 GW and will begin generating electricity in 2026, per the company.

Other wins for Fervo this year include moving into its new headquarters in downtown Houston, securing a power purchase agreement with California, growing its partnership with Google, and being named amongst the year's top inventions by Time magazine.


Investors from Houston, Boston fuel Greentown with $4M commitment

seeing green

Greentown Labs, a climatetech incubator with locations in the Houston and Boston areas, has announced it has received funding from a mix of investors.

The $4 million in funding came from both of the Houston and Massachusetts locations. Houston investors included Bobby Tudor, CEO of Artemis Energy Partners and chairman of the Houston Energy Transition Initiative; David Baldwin, co-founder of OpenMinds and TEX-E and partner at SCF Partners; and Rice University. Other investors included MassDevelopment and the City of Somerville.

“The challenges of the energy transition are immense, and the role played by technology incubators like Greentown Labs is essential,” Tudor says in a news release. “We believe this role, which is a partnership between academia, industry, philanthropists, entrepreneurs, and governments, is the best way to get to effective, scalable solutions in a time frame that the urgency of the challenge requires. We need all hands on deck, and this partnership between Massachusetts and Texas can be a role model for others.”

According to Greentown, the funding will support its financial position and contribute to preparing the incubator for its next chapter of supporting its its leadership team prepare for Greentown’s next chapter supporting and growing its 575 startups.

“Greentown’s mission aligns closely with the Houston Energy Transition Initiative’s goal of accelerating global solutions to address the dual challenge of meeting growing energy demand globally while also significantly reducing CO2 emissions,” adds Steve Kean, president and CEO of the Greater Houston Partnership.

With the announcement of the funding, Greentown named its board members, including Tudor, who will serve as Greentown Labs Board Chair. The other Houston-based board members are:

  • David Baldwin, co-founder of OpenMinds and TEX-E; partner atSCF Partners
  • Bob Harvey, former president and CEO of GHP; board member of TEX-E
  • Jane Stricker, senior vice president of energy transition and executive director of HETI

“With this new funding, Greentown is poised to expand its impact across its existing ecosystems and support even more climatetech startups,” adds Kevin Dutt, interim CEO of Greentown Labs. “We believe in the essential role entrepreneurship will play in the energy transition and we’re grateful for the support of our partners who share in that belief and our collective commitment to commercializing these technologies as quickly and efficiently as possible.”

According to Greentown, the incubator plans to announce its new CEO in the coming months.

------

This article originally ran on EnergyCapital.

From hiring tips to AI's impact on the workforce, here's what guest columns were the most read in 2024

year in review

Editor's note: Every week, InnovationMap runs one or two guest columns written by tech entrepreneurs, public relations experts, data geniuses, and more. As Houston's innovation ecosystem gets ready for 2025, here are some of this year's top guest contributor pieces — each with pertinent information and advice for startups both at publishing and into the new year. Make sure to click through to continue reading each piece.

Is your New Year's resolution to start contributing? Email natalie@innovationmap.com to learn more.

How to avoid bad hiring decisions when it matters most, according to this Houston expert

Despite the inevitability of bad hires, recruiters equipped with proper tools and training can identify red flags and take preventive measures. Photo by Tima Miroshnichenko from Pexels

Written by Karen Leal, performance specialist with Houston-based Insperity, a provider of human resources offering a suite of scalable HR solutions available in the marketplace.

Hiring the right people for the right roles is ideal and can make an organization reach new heights. The reality is every business has made a bad hire.

Finding the wrong fit for a team or organization is not uncommon, but it is important to know what it costs the organization, which can be detrimental to company finances and its workplace culture, especially small businesses and startups where the impact is magnified.

The U.S. Department of Labor reports a bad hire can cost up to 30 percent of the employee’s wage, which would be approximately $18,000 since the average American wage is $60,000. In addition, there are soft costs of managers and leadership time during the hiring and training process, which adds up quickly. Continue reading.

How AI is changing product management and what you need to know

A product management expert shares how artificial intelligence is affecting the process for the tech and startup worlds. Photo via Getty Images

Written by Natasha Gorodetsky, founder and CEO of Product Pursuits, a Houston company that helps early stage and venture-backed startups build products and create impact.

For the past 14 months, everyone has been talking about ways artificial intelligence is changing the world, and product management is not an exception. The challenge, as with every new technology, is not only adopting it but understanding what old habits, workflows, and processes are affected by it.

Product managers — as well as startup founders leading a product function — more than any other role, face a challenge of bringing new life-changing products to market that may or may not be received well by their users. A product manager’s goal is complex — bring value, stay ahead of the competition, be innovative. Yet, the "behind the scenes" grind requires endless decision making and trade offs to inspire stakeholders to move forward and deliver.

As we dive into 2024, it is obvious that AI tools do not only transform the way we work but also help product managers create products that exceed customer expectation and drive businesses forward. Continue reading.

Houston expert shares 3 ways to stay on top of employee mental health

Companies that intentionally focus on their employees’ mental well-being will reap the benefits of a happier, healthier workforce. Photo via Getty Images

Written by Dennis Yung, executive vice president and general manager at Skanska.

Conversations surrounding mental health have come to the forefront of business and is an imperative aspect that cannot be ignored by business leaders.

Approximately 20 percent of Americans, which is 50 million people (about twice the population of Texas), are experiencing a mental illness, 15 percent of Americans had a substance use disorder in the past year and nearly 5 percent, over 12.1 million adults, reported serious thoughts of suicide (Mental Health America). Notably, certain professions, such as construction, exhibit higher suicide rates, (CDC). With these staggering numbers, the foundation of workplace safety extends beyond physical well-being to encompass psychological health.

The landscape has undergone a transformation, stemming from the pandemic, and the stigma of mental health concerns and seeking help has loosened. Recognizing that September is Suicide Prevention Month, below are three ways businesses of every size can actively support the mental well-being of their employees. Continue reading.

Houston expert shares 3 business trend predictions for 2024

Here are predictions for what current and emerging trends will further shape businesses in 2024. Photo via Getty Images

Written by Bryce Lindner, senior vice president and market executive, commercial banking in South Texas at Louisiana at Bank of America.

Last year was a dynamic year for businesses across all sectors. Artificial intelligence went from a novel technology to a more widely utilized business productivity tool. Many companies invested additional resources in sustainable business practices. And digital business solutions helped companies thrive.

Here are predictions for what current and emerging trends will further shape businesses in 2024. Continue reading.

How this Houston innovator is using his personal connection to ALS fuel his fight for a cure

Daniel Barvin has a neurodegenerative disease in his near future. He joined Houston-based Coya Therapeutics to help fight for a cure to the aggressively deadly ALS. Photo via Getty Images

Written by Daniel Barvin, vice president of operations and patient advocacy at Coya Therapeutics.

We can never predict how our lives will turn out, but then maybe some of us can. Genetic testing showed that I, like my grandfather, aunt, uncle and father before me, would most likely die of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, more commonly known as ALS, and/or frontotemporal degeneration (FTD) in my 40s.

Being 36, it’s possible that fear could have overtaken my life, but instead I chose to fight for every chance to change not only my life, but the lives of millions who are suffering or may one day suffer from neurodegenerative disease.

ALS is a rare disease that robs one of their ability to control their muscles, leading them to lose their ability to walk, talk and eventually breathe. Eighty percent of cases are sporadic (of unknown origin) and 20 percent have known genetic causes. Continue reading.

View All Listings