5 Houston female founders land on coveted Inc. 500 list

girl power

Sassie Duggleby, Margo Jordan, Stephanie Murphy, Emily Cisek and Nina Magon were named to Inc.'s Female Founders 500 list for 2025. Photos courtesy the company's websites and social media pages.

Five Houston female founders have been recognized by Inc. Magazine for their innovations and for leading their industries forward.

The women were named to Inc.'s Female Founders 500 list, which features female entrepreneurs based in the U.S. The group attracted approximately $9 billion in 2024 revenue and $10.6 billion in funding, according to Inc.

“Female founders know what struggle is, but they’re also experts of improvisation, adaptability, and creativity. The women featured on this year’s list exemplify these qualities," Diana Ransom, Inc. executive editor said in a release. "Through times of uncertainty, their unwavering dedication and steadfast leadership are not only inspiring but vital to driving progress.”

The Houston founders are:

  • Emily Cisek, founder of The Postage, now known as Paige, a comprehensive life planning and succession software platform for families and small businesses. The company won the Female-Owned Business category in the 2023 Houston Innovation Awards.
  • Sassie Duggleby, CEO and co-founder of Houston space tech and engine company Venus Aerospace. The company won the in the Deep Tech Business category in the 2024 Houston Innovation Awards. Duggleby also serves on the Texas Space Commission board of directors.
  • Stephanie Murphy, CEO and executive chairman of Aegis Aerospace, which provides space services, spaceflight product development, and engineering services. Murphy also serves on the Texas Aerospace Research and Space Economy Consortium Executive Committee.
  • Margo Jordan, founder of adolescent mental health startup Enrichly, which uses AI-driven self-esteem development and behavioral insights to boost student performance.
  • Nina Magon, founder of Nina Magon Studio / Nina Magon Consumer Products, a residential and commercial interior design company.

"With every family and community we're able to impact through accessible estate planning, we're driven to do even more. Being recognized on Inc.’s Female Founders list is an incredible honor and a testament to the impact we’re making in fintech and beyond," Cisek said in a news release.

Duggleby echoed that sentiment on LinkedIn.

"While I don't know many of the ladies on this list, I do know they're some of the most tenacious role models in entrepreneurship. I'm beyond honored to be included among them," Duggleby added in a post.

Twenty-eight Texas female founders made this list, including Kendra Scott and Allison Ellsworth, co-founder of Poppi, and many others. See the full list of winners here.

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Thai Lee, of Austin, remains at the top of the list in Texas. Photo courtesy of SHI

12 Texas entrepreneurs rank among Forbes' richest self-made women for 2023

ELITE ENTREPRENEURS

Of the country's 100 most successful female entrepreneurs, 12 call Texas home, according to Forbes and its 2023 list of America's Richest Self-Made Women, released June 1.

"Bolstered in part by a rebound in the stock market, [the richest 100 female entrepreneurs] are cumulatively worth a record $124 billion, up nearly 12 percent from a year ago," says Forbes.

To make the Forbes list, women had to garner wealth on their own, rather than by inheriting or winning it. Texas' wealthiest women have made their fortunes in fields ranging from home health care, insurance, and aviation logistics to jewelry design, dating apps, and running the show at SpaceX. Austin is home to the largest concentration of these self-made Texans with eight Austinites making the list.

With an estimated net worth at $4.8 billion, Thai Lee, of Austin, remains at the top of the list in Texas, and ranks No. 5 nationally.

She falls behind only No. 1 Diane Hendricks of Wisconsin (co-founder of ABC Supply, $15 billion net worth); No. 2 Judy Love of Oklahoma (chairman and CEO, Love's Travel Stops And Country Stores, $10.2 billion); No. 3 Judy Faulkner of Wisconsin (founder and CEO, Epic Systems, $7.4 billion); and No. 4 Lynda Resnick of California (co-founder and co-owner of Wonderful Company, $5.3 billion) among America's richest self-made women.

For some additional perspective, Oprah Winfrey lands at No. 13 on the list for 2023. The TV titan (and most famous woman on the planet) has an estimated net worth of $2.5 billion, Forbes says.

Austin's Lee, a native of Bangkok who holds an MBA from Harvard University, is founder, president, and CEO of SHI International Corp., a provider of IT products and services with a projected revenue of $14 billion in 2023. Fun fact: "Lee majored in both biology and economics," Forbes says, "in part because her English was less than perfect and she wanted to avoid writing and speaking in class."

The other seven Austin women on the list are:

  • Lisa Su, No. 34, Austin. Forbes pegs Su’s net worth at $740 million, tying her with April Anthony of Dallas. The native of Taiwan is president and CEO of Santa Clara, California-based semiconductor company Advanced Micro Devices.
  • Kendra Scott, No. 47, of Austin.Forbes says she has amassed a net worth of $550 million as founder of Kendra Scott LLC, which designs and sells jewelry in more than 100 stores (and is worth $360 million). The celebrity entrepreneur is also a judge on TV's Shark Tank.
  • Whitney Wolfe Herd, No. 52, of Austin. She is worth an estimated $510 million. Herd is co-founder and CEO of Bumble Inc., which operates two online dating apps: Bumble and Badoo. She owns a 17% stake in Bumble and became the youngest self-made woman billionaire after it went public in February 2021.
  • Paige Mycoskie, No. 73, of Austin. She is worth an estimated $380 million. Mycoskie created founded her 1970s-inspired California lifestyle brand, Aviator Nation, which took off during the pandemic and now has 16 retail locations across the U.S. If the name sounds familiar, that's because she's the sister of TOMS founder Blake Mycoskie, with whom she competed on TV's The Amazing Race.
  • Imam Abuzeid, No. 77, of Austin. Her net worth is estimated at $350 million. Abuzeid is the co-founder and CEO of Incredible Health, which she started in 2017 to help alleviate America's nursing shortage. Forbes describes it as "a souped-up version of LinkedIn for nurses." Abuzeid is one of only a handful of Black female founders to run a company valued at more than $1 billion, Forbes notes.
  • Julia Cheek, No. 92, of Austin. Her net worth is estimated at $260 million. Cheek founded at-home testing company Everly Health in 2015 "out of frustration at having to pay thousands for lab testing to diagnose issues related to vitamin imbalance," Forbes says. It got a Shark Tank deal with Lori Greiner and is now worth roughly $1.8 billion.
  • Belinda Johnson, No. 96, of Austin. She is worth an estimated $250 million. Johnson was Airbnb's first chief operating officer and led many of its legal disputes. She stepped down from that role in March 2020, Forbes says, and left the company's board in June 2023.

The remaining Texas women on the list include:

  • Gwynne Shotwell, No. 27, of Jonesboro (Coryell-Hamilton counties). Her net worth is estimated at $860 million. Shotwell is president and COO of Elon Musk's SpaceX. She manages the operations of the commercial space exploration company and owns an estimated stake of 1 percent, Forbes says.
  • Robyn Jones, No. 29, of Fort Worth. Her net worth is estimated at $830 million. Jones is founder of Westlake-based Goosehead Insurance Agency LLC. She started the property and casualty insurance agency in 2003 after being frustrated with her truck-driver husband's "road warrior lifestyle," Forbes says. He joined her in 2004 and they took the company public in 2018. It has nearly 1,000 franchised offices.
  • April Anthony, No. 34, of Dallas. Forbes puts her net worth at $740 million. She founded the Dallas-based home health and hospice division of Encompass Health Corp and sold it for $750 million to HealthSouth. In 2022, she was named CEO of VitalCaring, a home health and hospice care firm.
  • Kathleen Hildreth, No. 44, of Aubrey. Her net worth is estimated at $590 million. Hildreth is co-founder of M1 Support Services LP, an aviation logistics company based in Denton. A service-disabled Army veteran, she graduated from West Point in 1983 and was deployed all around the world as a helicopter pilot.
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This article originally ran on CultureMap.

Tyla-Simone Crayton got a big boost from Kendra Scott on Shark Tank. Photo courtesy of Shark Tank

Houston-area teen scores golden investment from Kendra Scott on Shark Tank

teen-trepreneur

A17-year-old entrepreneur from Missouri City has struck gold with her business, thanks to a Texas-based jewelry superstar.

Tyla-Simone Crayton, who is CEO of her wing-style sauce company Sienna Sauce, scored a $100,000 investment for her business on a recent episode of Shark Tank.

Austin-based jewelry and design maven, Kendra Scott, a guest on the show, took a chance on the Houston-area teen. In return, Scott, who boasts a billion-dollar brand, nets 20 percent of Crayton's company.

"I was so impressed with Tyla-Simone's creativity and drive during her pitch in the tank," Scott tells CultureMap. "As a fellow female entrepreneur and Texan, I'm excited to see our partnership grow."

Crayton first created her own wing-style sauce when she was a mere 8 years old. She and her family, who originally hail from Brooklyn, New York, started selling wings out of their Sienna Plantation home (hence the company name) and quickly hatched a plan for a business. She launched Sienna Sauce when she was 14.

"I would wake up Sunday mornings, hand-bottle the sauce, package it, and then sell it to my local community," Crayton told CultureMap news partner ABC13. "Once I got enough money from that, we were able to go to a professional manufacturer and get my sauce manufactured."

In the episode, Crayton credited Shark Tank for inspiring her to start a business and even harked to a time when her family was homeless. The Sharks were visibly moved and impressed; Scott praised the young entrepreneur, calling her "amazing," declaring, "I am the Shark for you," and promising help with distribution, shelf space, and more.

Sienna Sauce is available in three flavors: tangy, lemon pepper, and spicy. Currently, Clayton's products are available on Amazon and in more than 70 independent stores and chains across Texas and the U.S. — including five H-E-B stores in the Houston area.

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This article originally ran on CultureMap.

Kendra Scott is one of the five richest self-made women in the state. Photo by Tyler Schmitt, ARF

5 Texas entrepreneurs rank among Forbes' richest self-made women

Must be the money

It's common knowledge Houston Rockets owner Tilman Fertitta and Gulf States Toyota owner Dan Friedkin rank among the wealthiest people in Texas. But did you know that five other entrepreneurs — collectively worth more than $4 billion — stand among the richest self-made women in the country?

Billionaire Thai Lee and millionaires Kendra Scott, Kathleen Hildreth, Whitney Wolfe Herd, and Suzy Batiz appear on Forbes magazine's new list of America's 80 richest self-made women — women who garnered wealth on their own, rather than by inheriting or winning it. And they're in great company, joining the likes of Taylor Swift, Oprah Winfrey, Kylie Jenner, Rihanna, Madonna, Celine Dion, and Beyoncé.

Thai Lee, with an estimated net worth of $3 billion, appears at No. 5 on the Forbes list. She is president and CEO of SHI International Corp., a provider of IT products and services whose more than 17,000 customers include AT&T and Boeing. Revenue at the New Jersey-based company hit $10 billion in 2018; more than 4,000 people work at SHI. Austin is home to SHI's corporate call center and is the hub for its sales division catering to small and midsize businesses.

"In early 2015, we mapped a five-year goal to reach $10 billion in revenue by the end of 2019. Through the hard work of our employees, the strength of our partnerships, and our ability to discern and solve our customers' most pressing IT and business challenges, we reached that goal 12 months early," Lee says in a February release.

At No. 40 on the list, with an estimated net worth of $550 million, is Kendra Scott. She is founder and CEO of Kendra Scott Design Inc. Annual sales at the Austin-based jewelry company hover around $360 million.

In 2017, Boston-based private equity firm Berkshire Partners invested in Scott's company at a valuation of more than $1 billion. Scott started the company in 2002 in the spare bedroom of her home. Today, Scott's business operates 100 jewelry stores, runs massive e-commerce and wholesale units, and employs more than 2,000 people. Last year, the company opened its flagship store on South Congress Avenue.

"There were so many ups and downs through this journey. There were many times that I thought I was going to lose my business. I had no investment capital. I was carrying it all on my shoulders — bootstrapping it, literally," Scott told CNN in 2018.

Kathleen Hildreth, co-founder of aviation-maintenance company M1 Support Services, appears on the list at No. 57, with an estimated net worth of $370 million. She is a West Point graduate and Army veteran who served as a helicopter pilot. Before M1 Support, she worked with defense contractors, including Lockheed Martin and DynCorp. Hildreth calls Aubrey, Texas, in the DFW area, home.

"Anything in the government's [aircraft] inventory, we do work on," Hildreth told Forbes. "You name it." Forbes adds, "The U.S Air Force, U.S. Army, U.S. Navy, and NASA are all clients of M1 Support, which relies entirely on the federal government for business. Most of its revenues come from maintaining military aircraft, including fighter jets such as F15s, F16s, and A10 Thunderbolts."

The fourth Texas entrepreneur on the list is Whitney Wolfe Herd, founder and CEO of Austin-based Bumble Trading Inc., developer of the Bumble dating app for women, and the related Bumble BFF friend-finding app and Bumble Bizz networking app. Herd launched Bumble in 2014 after co-founding dating app Tinder. With an estimated net worth of $290 million, Herd claimed the No. 72 spot on the Forbes list. This is her first year to be ranked.

Bumble counts more than 60 million users in 150 countries. The company's estimated annual revenue totals $175 million, according to Forbes. Russian billionaire Andrey Andreev is the majority owner of Bumble.

"I want to take this sucker around the planet," Herd told Marie Claire last year about the future of Bumble. "Then, who knows, maybe we'll work with [Jeff] Bezos and [Elon] Musk and take it beyond."

At No. 77, with an estimated net worth of $270 million, is Dallas' Suzy Batiz, founder of Poo-Pourri, the before-you-go toilet spray available at major retailers. More than 60 million bottles have sold since the company's founding in 2007; Pou-Pourri is now expanding into shoe and pet odors and a cleaning line.

Asked in 2016 what the riskiest thing was she had ever done professionally, Batiz said not selling her company or taking on investors.

"I had no idea if it was going to work out. It's like being on a game show," she told Forbes. "They hand you the big briefcase and you think, 'You can take this thing of money, or you can gamble and try to stay in the game.' Somehow I knew that my baby, the company, was very similar to a child. It just wasn't ready to be released into the world yet without me."

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This story originally appeared on CultureMap.

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7 innovative startups that are leading the energy transition in Houston

meet the finalists

Houston has long been touted as the energy capital of the world, and it's now it's also a leading player in the energy transition — home to numerous startups and innovators working toward a cleaner future.

As part of the 2025 Houston Innovation Awards, our Energy Transition Business category honors innovative startups that are providing solution within renewables, climatetech, clean energy, alternative materials, circular economy, and more.

Seven energy transition companies have been named finalists for the 2025 award. They range from a spinoff stimulating subsurface hydrogen from end-of-life oil fields to a company converting prickly pear cactus biogas into energy.

Read more about these climatetech businesses, their founders, and their green initiatives below. Then join us at the Houston Innovation Awards on Nov. 13 at Greentown Labs, when the winner will be unveiled at our live awards ceremony.

Tickets are now on sale for this exclusive event celebrating all things Houston Innovation.

Anning Corporation

Clean energy company Anning Corporation is working to develop geologic hydrogen, a natural carbon-free fuel, using its proprietary stimulation approaches and advanced exploration modeling. The company said that geologic hydrogen has the potential to be the lowest-cost source of reliable baseload electricity in the U.S.

The company was founded by CEO Sophie Broun in 2024 and is a member of Greentown Labs. Last month, it also announced that it was chosen to participate in Breakthrough Energy’s prestigious Fellows Program. Anning raised a pre-seed round this year and is currently raising a $6 million seed round.

Capwell Services

Houston-based methane capture company Capwell Services works to eliminate vented oil and gas emissions economically for operators. According to the company, methane emissions are vented from most oil and gas facilities due to safety protocols, and operators are not able to capture the gas cost-effectively, leading operators to emit more than 14 million metric tons of methane per year in the U.S. and Canada. Founded in 2022, Capwell specializes in low and intermittent flow vents for methane capture.

The company began as a University of Pennsylvania senior design project led by current CEO Andrew Lane. It has since participated in programs with Greentown Labs and Rice Clean Energy Accelerator. The company moved to Houston in 2023 and raised a pre-seed round. It has also received federal funding from the DOE. Capwell is currently piloting its commercial unit with oil and gas operators.

Deep Anchor Solutions

Offshore energy consulting and design company Deep Anchor Solutions aims to help expedite the adoption of floating offshore energy infrastructure with its deeply embedded ring anchor (DERA) technology. According to the company, its patented DERA system can be installed quietly without heavy-lift vessels, reducing anchor-related costs by up to 75 percent and lifecycle CO2 emissions by up to 80 percent.

The company was founded in 2023 by current CEO Junho Lee and CTO Charles Aubeny. Lee earned his Ph.D. in geotechnical engineering from Texas A&M University, where Aubeny is a professor of civil and environmental engineering. The company has participated in numerous accelerators and incubators, including Greentown Labs, MassChallenge, EnergyTech Nexus LiftOff, and others. Lee is an Activate 2025 fellow.

Eclipse Energy

Previously known as Gold H2, Eclipse Energy converts end-of-life oil fields into low-cost, sustainable hydrogen sources. It completed its first field trial this summer, which demonstrated subsurface bio-stimulated hydrogen production. According to the company, its technology could yield up to 250 billion kilograms of low-carbon hydrogen, which is estimated to provide enough clean power to Los Angeles for over 50 years and avoid roughly 1 billion metric tons of CO2 equivalent.

Eclipse is a spinoff of Houston biotech company Cemvita. It was founded in 2022 by Moji Karimi (CEO and chairman of Cemvita), Prabhdeep Sekhon (CEO of Eclipse), Tara Karimi, and Rayyan Islam. The company closed an $8 million series A this year and has plans to raise another round in 2026.

Loop Bioproducts

Agricultural chemical manufacturing company Loop Bioproducts leverages the physiology of prickly pear cactus grown in Texas to produce bioenergy, food, and remediate industrial wastewater streams. The company uses its remote sensing technology, proprietary image-based machine learning model, and R&D innovation to capture raw biogas from the cactuses and is focused on scaling cactuses as an industrial crop on land.

Rhiannon Parker founded Loop Bioproducts in 2023.

Mars Materials

Clean chemical manufacturing business Mars Materials is working to convert captured carbon into resources, such as carbon fiber and wastewater treatment chemicals. The company develops and produces its drop-in chemical products in Houston and uses an in-licensed process for the National Renewable Energy Lab to produce acrylonitrile, which is used to produce plastics, synthetic fibers, and rubbers. The company reports that it plans to open its first commercial plant in the next 18 months.

Founded in 2019 by CEO Aaron Fitzgerald, CTO Kristian Gubsch, and lead engineer Trey Sheridan, the company has raised just under $1 million in capital and is backed by Bill Gates’ Breakthrough Energy, Shell, Black & Veatch, and other organizations.

Solidec

Chemical manufacturing company Solidec has developed autonomous generators that extract molecules from water and air and converts them into pure chemicals and fuels that are free of carbon emissions onsite, eliminating the need for transport, storage, and permitting. The company was founded around innovations developed by Rice University associate professor Haotian Wang.

The company was selected for the Chevron Technology Ventures’ catalyst program, Greentown Labs, NSF I-Corps and was part of the first cohort of the Activate Houston program. It won first place at the 2024 startup pitch competition at CERAWeek. Solidec was founded in 2023 by Wang, who serves as chief scientist, CEO Ryan DuChanois, and CTO Yang Xia. It closed a $2.5 million seed round earlier this year.

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Rice University team develops eco-friendly method to destroy 'forever chemicals' in water

clean water research

Rice University researchers have teamed up with South Korean scientists to develop the first eco-friendly technology that captures and destroys toxic “forever chemicals,” or PFAS, in water.

PFAS have been linked to immune system disruption, certain cancers, liver damage and reproductive disorders. They can be found in water, soil and air, as well as in products like Teflon pans, waterproof clothing and food packaging. They do not degrade easily and are difficult to remove.

Thus far, PFAS cleanup methods have relied on adsorption, in which molecules cling to materials like activated carbon or ion-exchange resins. But these methods tend to have limited capacity, low efficiency, slow performance and can create additional waste.

The Rice-led study, published in the journal Advanced Materials, centered on a layered double hydroxide (LDH) material made from copper and aluminum that could rapidly capture PFAS and be used to destroy the chemicals.

The study was led by Rice professor Youngkun Chung, a postdoctoral fellow under the mentorship of Michael S. Wong. It was conducted in collaboration with Seoktae Kang, professor at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, and Keon-Ham Kim, professor at Pukyung National University, who first discovered the LDH material.

The team evaluated the LDH material in river water, tap water and wastewater. And, according to Rice, that material’s unique copper-aluminum layers and charge imbalances created an ideal binding environment to capture PFAS molecules.

“To my astonishment, this LDH compound captured PFAS more than 1,000 times better than other materials,” Chung, lead author of the study and now a fellow at Rice’s WaTER (Water Technologies, Entrepreneurship and Research) Institute and Sustainability Institute, said in a news release. “It also worked incredibly fast, removing large amounts of PFAS within minutes, about 100 times faster than commercial carbon filters.”

Next, Chung, along with Rice professors Pedro Alvarez and James Tour, worked to develop an eco-friendly, sustainable method of thermally decomposing the PFAS captured on the LDH material. They heated saturated material with calcium carbonate, which eliminated more than half of the trapped PFAS without releasing toxic by-products.

The team believes the study’s results could potentially have large-scale applications in industrial cleanups and municipal water treatments.

“We are excited by the potential of this one-of-a-kind LDH-based technology to transform how PFAS-contaminated water sources are treated in the near future,” Wong added in the news release. “It’s the result of an extraordinary international collaboration and the creativity of young researchers.”

Axiom Space announces new CEO amid strategic leadership change

new leader

Six months after promoting Tejpaul Bhatia from chief revenue officer to CEO, commercial space infrastructure and human spaceflight services provider Axiom Space has replaced him.

On Oct. 15, Houston-based Axiom announced Jonathan Cirtain has succeeded Bhatia as CEO. Bhatia joined Axiom in 2021. Cirtain remains the company’s president, a role he assumed in June, according to his LinkedIn profile.

In a news release, Axiom said Cirtain’s appointment as CEO is a “strategic leadership change” aimed at advancing the company’s development of space infrastructure.

Axiom hired Cirtain as president in June, according to his LinkedIn profile. The company didn’t publicly announce that move.

Kam Ghaffarian, co-founder and executive chairman of Axiom, said Cirtain’s “proven track record of leadership and commitment to excellence align perfectly with our mission of building era-defining space infrastructure that will drive exploration and fuel the global space economy.”

Aside from praising Cirtain, Ghaffarian expressed his “sincere gratitude” for Bhatia’s work at Axiom, including his leadership as CEO during “a significant transition period.”

Bhatia was promoted to CEO in April after helping Axiom gain more than $1 billion in contracts, Space News reported. He succeeded Ghaffarian as CEO. Axiom didn’t indicate whether Bhatia quit or was terminated.

Cirtain, an astrophysicist, was a senior executive at BWX Technologies, a supplier of nuclear components and fuel, for eight years before joining Axiom. Earlier, Cirtain spent nearly nine years in various roles at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. He previously co-founded a machine learning company specializing in Earth observation.

“Axiom Space is pioneering the commercialization of low-Earth orbit infrastructure while accelerating advancements in human spaceflight technologies,” Cirtain said. “I look forward to continuing our team’s important work of driving innovation to support expanded access to space and off-planet capabilities that will underpin the future of space exploration.”

Among other projects, Axiom is developing the world’s first commercial space station, creating next-generation spacesuits for astronauts and sending astronauts on low-Earth orbit missions.

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