Houston investor outlines how rare VCs are in Houston — and how to find them

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If you feel like it's hard to find venture capitalists in Houston, you wouldn't be wrong, according to this Houston investor. Photo via Getty Images

As a venture capitalist and former startup founder living in Houston, I get asked a lot about the best way to find and connect with a venture capitalist in Houston. My usual advice is to start with a list, and reach out to everyone on that list. But no one has a comprehensive list. In fact, VCs are such a quiet bunch that I’ve yet to meet someone who personally knows everyone on this proverbial list.

So, I got together with a couple of VC friends of mine, and we put together our own Houston venture capitalist list.

There are, by our count, 11 active venture capital funds headquartered in Houston of any size and type, and outside of corporate venture capital and angel investors, there are 30 total venture capitalists running funds.

Houston has always been quite thin on the VC fund front. I’ve jokingly introduced myself for a while as “one of the 13 venture capitalists in Houston.”

Let’s put this scale in some brutal perspective. With 7.2 million people in the Greater Houston Metro Area, the odds of finding a partner level active venture capitalist in Houston is about 1 in 240,000, if you take a most expanded definition of venture capitalist that might come down to 1 in 100,000. We’re the fifth largest metropolitan area in the country with a tremendous economic engine; there is a ton of capital in Houston, but it’s residing in things like institutional fixed income and equities, real estate, wealth management, corporate, private equity, family office, energy and infrastructure Basically, mostly everywhere but in venture capital funds for tech startups.

By comparison, there are almost as many Fortune 500 CEOs in Houston — 24, by our count — as venture capitalists and fewer venture capitalists than Fortune 1000 CEOs, of which there are 43. That means running into a VC in the checkout line at HEB is about as rare as running into the CEO of CenterPoint, ConocoPhillips, or Academy. In fact, as there are 115 cities in the Greater Houston area, you are three times more likely to be a mayor in Greater Houston Area than a partner at an investor at a VC firm, and more likely to be a college or university president. While we’re at it, you’re 400 times more likely to be a lawyer, 250 times more likely to be a CPA, and over 650 times more likely to be a medical doctor.

Our 30 venture capitalists in the Greater Houston Area are spread across 20 firms and all major venture sectors and stages. Venture capitalist is defined for this list as a full time managing director or partner-level investment professional actively running a venture capital fund with limited partners, currently investing in new venture capital deals from their fund from seed to growth stage, and residing in the Greater Houston Metro area.

To get to 31 we added in a couple of people running venture set asides for PE funds, and a number who work from Houston for funds with no office here. We excluded CVCs, as the decision making is more corporate than individual and rarely includes the committed fund and carried interest structure that defines venture capital, and excluded professionals at angel networks, accelerators, and seed funds that provide investment, but don’t manage conventional venture capital funds, as well as PE funds that do the occasional venture deal. We might be able to triple the number if we include venture capitalists at any professional level, and add in those professionals at PE and angel and seed funds, and corporate venture capital teams who are actively investing. But we’ll get to those other sources of funding in the next list.

The 11 venture capital funds headquartered in Houston are: Mercury, Energy Transition Ventures (my fund), Montrose Lane (formerly called Cottonwood), Texas Medical Center Venture Fund, Artemis, New Climate Ventures, Fitz Gate Ventures, Curate Capital, Knightsgate Ventures, Amplo Ventures,and First Bight Ventures.

Another half a dozen firms have a partner level venture capital investor here, but are headquartered elsewhere: Energy Innovation Capital, Decarbonization Partners, 1984 Ventures, Altitude Ventures, Ascension Ventures, Moneta Ventures, and MKB & Co. Two others, CSL Ventures and SCF Partners, are local private equity funds with a venture capital partner in Houston and a dedicated allocation from a PE fund.

Culling these for partner or managing director level currently in Houston, in alphabetical order by first name, LinkedIn profile and all.

We may have missed a couple of VCs hiding in plain sight, as venture capital is a pretty dynamic business.

VCs are just rare. And yes, perhaps more rare in Houston than in California. Something less than 1 in 100 VCs in the country live in Houston. Across the US there are somewhere around 1,000 to 2,000 active venture capital firms, and maybe another 1,000 to 2,000 active US based CVCs — so, plus or minus maybe at most 4,000 to 5,000 currently active partner level venture capitalists in the country excluding CVC professionals (active VCs and VC funds are really hard to count).

Perhaps in the most stunning statistic, the 7,386 elected state legislators in the US today outnumber the total number of American venture capitalists. Luckily for startup founders, the venture capitalists are more likely to return your phone call.

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Neal Dikeman is a venture capitalist and seven-time startup co-founder investing out of Energy Transition Ventures. He’s currently hosting the Venture Capital for First Time Founders Series at the Ion, where ETV is headquartered.

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Montrose Lane managing partners, Ryan Gurney (left) and Jeremy Arendt, have announced a rebrand and the closing of the new fund. Photos via montroselane.com

Houston venture group closes $64M fund and rebrands with new name

money moves

A Houston venture investment group has announced today that it has a new name to go along with the recent closing of its second fund.

Cottonwood Venture Partners, a Houston-based firm focused on funding startups with software solutions for the energy industry, has closed its $64 million Fund II and renamed itself Montrose Lane.

"Our mission is to uphold a creative and fast-moving approach to partnering with software companies that help make energy affordable, safe, and environmentally friendly," says Jeremy Arendt, managing partner, in a news release. "For several reasons, 'Montrose Lane' captures that vision for us."

The new name is effective immediately, and the leadership at the firm is remaining the same. Chicago-based Kirkland & Ellis LLP served as fund formation counsel to Montrose Lane.

Montrose Lane's second fund — which is double the size of its first — included both new and previous investors, as well as strategic corporations. Founded in 2017, the fund has raised about $100 million in commitments.

"We are humbled to have had such supportive partners behind us since we first set out to invest in technology companies changing the way the energy industry does business," says Ryan Gurney, managing partner, in the release. "The global pandemic has only accelerated the need to adopt digital solutions throughout the energy industry. We are excited to pursue the opportunity alongside our existing and new investors."

Last year, Montrose Lane led several Texas energy tech startups' funding round, including Austin-based HURVData Inc.'s $5 million series A round, Dallas-headquartered Trivie Inc.'s $5 million series A round, Houston-based Hitched.com's $5.5 million series A, and Houston-focused Ambyint's $15 million series B.

Trivie has closed a $5 million investment round led by Houston-based Cottonwood Venture Partners. Photo via Trivie.com

Houston investment firm leads Texas startup's $5M series A round

money moves

A Texas-based tech startup that has created an artificial intelligence-enabled tool that gamifies corporate training and education has closed its most recent funding round thanks to a Houston investor.

Trivie as announced its $5 million series A investment round led by Houston-based Cottonwood Venture Partners, an investment firm that has a portfolio of technology companies that are providing digital solutions within the energy industry. Trivie will use the new funds to scale its product and expand across industries, from energy and manufacturing to hospitality, healthcare, consumer goods, and more.

"The Trivie team's success to date has been remarkable and we are humbled to partner with them to expand Trivie's reach as organizations increasingly look to maximize knowledge retention, particularly as it relates to health and safety," says Jeremy Arendt, managing partner of CVP, in a news release.

Now, as more employees are working from home than ever before, relevant training is crucial and at the top of mind for business leaders. Trivie's clients include Subway, Phillips66, Anheuser-Busch, to name a few.

"At Trivie, our mission is to ensure that every employee at every organization can be at their very best because what they have been taught, they remember, and what they have said is understood," says Lawrence Schwartz, CEO, and co-founder at Trivie, in a news release. "We are extremely excited to partner with Cottonwood Venture Partners to help us expand our footprint in the Fortune 1000 and to continue to execute on that mission."

One of Trivie's founders, Leland Putterman, who is based in Houston, first had the idea for a consumer-facing trivia game 18 years ago. When the app rolled out in 2013, it garnered more than three million downloads. As COVID-19 has brought new compliance guidelines to the forefront of every industry, Trivie was quick to make the CDC's coronavirus guidelines available to all of its clients for no additional charge to be used across their entire employment bases.

Additionally, Trivie prioritizing its user's ability to connect in a time of social distancing and working from home.

"The only way to maintain that company culture and close communication with confidence is to use something like Trivie," Putterman previously tells InnovationMap. "There's no feedback loop right now. The only way to bridge that gap is to have something like Trivie that's the glue."

Houston-based Tachyus closed a $15 million Series B round. Photo courtesy of Thomas Miller/Breitling Energy

Houston oil and gas software company closes $15 million round led by local PE firm

Money on the mind

It's pay day for Houston-based Tachyus. the data-driven software company has closed its Series B fundraising round at $15 million. The round was led by Houston-based Cottonwood Venture Partners, a private equity firm that funds companies using technology to solve problems within the energy industry.

Tachyus was founded in 2013 in Silicon Valley and recently relocated to Houston. The fresh funds will go into growing its cloud-based, artificial intelligence-enabled platform.

"In this economic environment, oil and gas operators need disruptive tools to optimize their fields," Tachyus CEO and co-founder, Paul Orland, says in a release. "This investment allows us to reach more customers and accelerate the delivery of new technology that improves our clients' business performance."

The company has already grown its client base and has customers in Argentina, Europe, and Asia. Tachyus joins several other tech-focused energy startups in CVP's portfolio, including Ambyint, Novi Labs, and SitePro. Houston-based Tudor, Pickering, Holt & Co. served Tachyus as its financial adviser.

"As the oil and gas industry evolves in the face of new commercial challenges, operators need to focus on getting the best performance from their assets, and Tachyus' technology has a track record of doing just that," says Jeremy Arendt, managing partner of CVP, in the release. "We are excited to partner with the Tachyus team to expand their reach and empower customers to optimize production across their fields."

Tachyus closed its last round in 2016 with a $4 million investment from Primwest, according to CrunchBase. Before that, the company had raised several million.

Last year, the startup restructured its C-suite. Tachyus co-founder Dakin Sloss transitioned from CEO to chairman, and Orland, who was previously CTO, took the reins, according to a release.

Paul Orland is CEO of Tachyus. Photo via tachyus.com

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Houston scores $120M in new cancer research and prevention grants

cancer funding

The Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas has granted more than $120 million to Houston organizations and companies as part of 73 new awards issued statewide.

The funds are part of nearly $154 million approved by the CPRIT's governing board earlier this month, bringing the organization's total investment in cancer prevention and research to more than $4 billion since its inception.

“Today marks an important milestone for CPRIT and for every Texan affected by cancer,” CEO Kristen Doyle said in a news release. “Texas has invested $4 billion in the fight against one of the world’s greatest public health challenges. Over 16 years, that support has helped Texas lead the search for breakthrough treatments, develop new cancer-fighting drugs and devices, and—most importantly—save tens of thousands of lives through early cancer detection and prevention. Every Texan should know this effort matters, and we’re not finished yet. Together, we will conquer cancer.”

A portion of the funding will go toward recruiting leading cancer researchers to Houston. CPRIT granted $5 million to bring John Quackenbush to Baylor College of Medicine. Quackenbush comes from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and is an expert in computational and systems biology. His research focuses on complex genomic data to understand cancer and develop targeted therapies.

The University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center also received $3 million to recruit Irfan Asangani, an associate professor at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine. His research focuses on how chromatin structure and epigenetic regulation drive the development and progression of cancer, especially prostate cancer.

Other funds will go towards research on a rare, aggressive kidney cancer that impacts children and young adults; screening programs for breast and cervical cancer; and diagnostic technology.

In total, cancer grants were given to:

  • The University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center: $29.02 million
  • Baylor College of Medicine: $15.04 million
  • The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston: $9.37 million
  • Texas A&M University System Health Science Center: $1.2 million
  • University of Houston: $900,000

Additional Houston-based companies landed grants, including:

  • Crossbridge Bio Inc.: $15.01 million
  • OncoMAGNETx Inc.: $13.97 million
  • Immunogenesis Inc.: $10.85 million
  • Diakonos Oncology Corporation: $7.16 million
  • Iterion Therapeutics Inc.: $7.13 million
  • NovaScan Inc.: $3.7 million
  • EMPIRI Inc.: $2.59 million
  • Air Surgical Inc.: $2.58 million
  • Light and Salt Association: $2.45 million

See the full list of awards here.

U.S. News names 5 Houston suburbs as the best places to retire in 2026

Retirement Report

Houston-area suburbs should be on the lookout for an influx of retirees in 2026. A new study by U.S. News and World Report has declared The Woodlands and Spring as the fourth and fifth best cities to retire in America, with three other local cities making the top 25.

The annual report, called "250 Best Places to Retire in the U.S. in 2026" initially compared 850 U.S. cities, and narrowed the list down to a final 250 cities (up from 150 previously). Each locale was analyzed across six indexes: quality of life for individuals reaching retirement age, value (housing affordability and cost of living), health care quality, tax-friendliness for retirees, senior population and migration rates, and the strength of each city's job market.

Midland, Michigan was crowned the No. 1 best place to retire in 2026. The remaining cities that round out the top five are Weirton, West Virginia (No. 2) and Homosassa Springs, Florida (No. 3).

According to U.S. News, about 15 percent of The Woodlands' population is over the age of 65. The median household income in this suburb is $139,696, far above the national average median household income of $79,466.

Though The Woodlands has a higher cost of living than many other places in the country, the report maintains that the city "offers a higher value of living compared to similarly sized cities."

"If you want to buy a house in The Woodlands, the median home value is $474,279," the city's profile on U.S. News says. "And if you're a renter, you can expect the median rent here to be $1,449." For comparison, the report says the national average home value is $370,489.

Spring ranked as the fifth best place to retire in 2026, boasting a population of more than 68,000 residents, 11 percent of whom are seniors. This suburb is located less than 10 miles south of The Woodlands, while still being far enough away from Houston (about 25 miles) for seniors to escape big city life for the comfort of a smaller community.

"Retirees are prioritizing quality of life over affordability for the first time since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic," said U.S. News contributing editor Tim Smart in a press release.

The median home value in Spring is lower than the national average, at $251,247, making it one of the more affordable places to buy a home in the Houston area. Renters can expect to pay a median $1,326 in monthly rent, the report added.

Elsewhere in Houston, Pearland ranked as the 17th best place to retire for 2026, followed by Conroe (No. 20) and League City (No. 25).

Other Texas cities that ranked among the top 50 best places to retire nationwide include Victoria (No. 12), San Angelo (No. 28), and Flower Mound (No. 37).

The top 10 best U.S. cities to retire in 2026 are:

  • No. 1 – Midland, Michigan
  • No. 2 – Weirton, West Virginia
  • No. 3 – Homosassa Springs, Florida
  • No. 4 – The Woodlands, Texas
  • No. 5 – Spring, Texas
  • No. 6 – Rancho Rio, New Mexico
  • No. 7 – Spring Hill, Florida
  • No. 8 – Altoona, Pennsylvania
  • No. 9 – Palm Coast, Florida
  • No. 10 – Lynchburg, Virginia
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This article originally appeared on CultureMap.com.

Micro-nuclear reactor to launch at Texas A&M innovation campus in 2026

nuclear pilot

The Texas A&M University System and Last Energy plan to launch a micro-nuclear reactor pilot project next summer at the Texas A&M-RELLIS technology and innovation campus in Bryan.

Washington, D.C.-based Last Energy will build a 5-megawatt reactor that’s a scaled-down version of its 20-megawatt reactor. The micro-reactor initially will aim to demonstrate safety and stability, and test the ability to generate electricity for the grid.

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) fast-tracked the project under its New Reactor Pilot Program. The project will mark Last Energy’s first installation of a nuclear reactor in the U.S.

Private funds are paying for the project, which Robert Albritton, chairman of the Texas A&M system’s board of regents, said is “an example of what’s possible when we try to meet the needs of the state and tap into the latest technologies.”

Glenn Hegar, chancellor of the Texas A&M system, said the 5-megawatt reactor is the kind of project the system had in mind when it built the 2,400-acre Texas A&M-RELLIS campus.

The project is “bold, it’s forward-looking, and it brings together private innovation and public research to solve today’s energy challenges,” Hegar said.

As it gears up to build the reactor, Last Energy has secured a land lease at Texas A&M-RELLIS, obtained uranium fuel, and signed an agreement with DOE. Founder and CEO Bret Kugelmass said the project will usher in “the next atomic era.”

In February, John Sharp, chancellor of Texas A&M’s flagship campus, said the university had offered land at Texas A&M-RELLIS to four companies to build small modular nuclear reactors. Power generated by reactors at Texas A&M-RELLIS may someday be supplied to the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) grid.

Also in February, Last Energy announced plans to develop 30 micro-nuclear reactors at a 200-acre site about halfway between Lubbock and Fort Worth.

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

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