3 Houston innovators to know this week

who's who

This week's roundup of Houston innovators includes Peter Rodriguez of Rice University, Kike Oduba of WellnessWits, and Phil Sitter of RepeatMD. Photos courtesy

Editor's note: In this week's roundup of Houston innovators to know, I'm introducing you to three local innovators across industries recently making headlines in Houston across business, software, and digital health.

Peter Rodriguez, dean of Rice University's Jones Graduate School of Business

Peter Rodriguez joins the Houston Innovators Podcast to discuss the school's growth and development as an innovation leader. Photo courtesy Annie Tao/Rice University

Entrepreneurship doesn't require a MBA from Rice University, but Dean Peter Rodriguez wants to make sure that the students who do pass through the halls of the Jesse H. Jones Graduate School of Business are well prepared for creating a successful company.

"We really want to be the deliverer of the software in people's brain of how to launch great companies and to be trumpeting the opportunities here," he says on the Houston Innovators Podcast.

Rodriguez joined the school as dean in 2016, and since then he's doubled MBA enrollment, grown the tenure-track faculty by over 40 percent, launched an online graduate degree, created an undergraduate business major, and more.

"When I came here, I thought Rice had the best strategic foundation of any university for a great business school — and a lot of that is being really closely connected to Houston and bringing in innovation," he says on the show. Read more.

Kike Oduba, founder and CEO of WellnessWits

WellnessWits, founded by Kike Oduba to enhance patient-physician interaction, has integrated AI with the help of IBM. Photo via WellnessWits.com

A Houston startup aimed at transforming healthcare with solutions for chronic disease and its prevention has teamed up with IBM technology.

WellnessWits has embedded IBM watsonx Assistant into its app for both iOS and Android. By making generative AI part of the app, WellnessWits now boasts an AI-based chat functionality.

That cutting-edge aspect of the platform allows patients to get information on chronic disease more quickly than ever, even before meeting with their physician. But it helps with that, too, aiding in scheduling appointments more easily with doctors who specialize in a host of chronic maladies.

“I founded WellnessWits as a platform for shared medical appointments where doctors with large patient loads can see them in groups and offer collective shared medical experiences to people suffering from chronic conditions. The goal is to bridge this divide, leveraging the strength of digital communities to enhance the overall well-being and healthcare experiences of individuals everywhere,” WellnessWits Founder and CEO Dr. Kike Oduba, a physician and informatician, writes in a blog post. Read more.

Phil Sitter, founder and CEO of RepeatMD

Fresh off a win at the Houston Innovation Awards, Phil Sitter's RepeatMD has raised funding. Photo via RepeatMD

Just nine months after its seed round, a Houston startup with a software platform for the aesthetic and wellness industry has secured $40 million in venture capital and $10 million in debt facility.

RepeatMD, a SaaS platform, announced today that it's secured $50 million, which includes a $10 million debt facility from Silicon Valley Bank. The round was co-led by Centana Growth Partners and Full In Partners with participation from PROOF and Mercury Fund, which also contributed to the seed round earlier this year.

The mobile ecommerce platform, launched in October 2021 by Phil Sitter, targets practices within the med spa and aesthetics industry. In the United States, the med spa market is slated to hit $19 billion in 2023, according to the company's press release, while the global aesthetics market is forecasted to reach to nearly $332 billion by 2030.

“Even though the aesthetics and wellness industry has continued to innovate a growing range of life-changing treatments, practices continue to face challenges selling treatments and services that are new and unfamiliar to patients,” Sitter, CEO of RepeatMD, says in the release. “Our goal at RepeatMD is to give these practice owners the technology to elevate their patients’ experience. Our platform serves as a med-commerce engine equipped with the same firepower as large retailers to convert sales inside and outside of practice operating hours.” Read more.

WellnessWits, founded by Kike Oduba to enhance patient-physician interaction, has integrated AI with the help of IBM. Photo via WellnessWits.com

Houston health tech startup taps into IBM tech for AI integration

teaming up

A Houston startup aimed at transforming healthcare with solutions for chronic disease and its prevention has teamed up with IBM technology.

WellnessWits has embedded IBM watsonx Assistant into its app for both iOS and Android. By making generative AI part of the app, WellnessWits now boasts an AI-based chat functionality.

That cutting-edge aspect of the platform allows patients to get information on chronic disease more quickly than ever, even before meeting with their physician. But it helps with that, too, aiding in scheduling appointments more easily with doctors who specialize in a host of chronic maladies.

“I founded WellnessWits as a platform for shared medical appointments where doctors with large patient loads can see them in groups and offer collective shared medical experiences to people suffering from chronic conditions. The goal is to bridge this divide, leveraging the strength of digital communities to enhance the overall well-being and healthcare experiences of individuals everywhere,” WellnessWits Founder and CEO Dr. Kike Oduba, a physician and informatician, writes in a blog post.

Oduba founded the company in 2018. In its early years, she participated in IBM’s First AI Cohort for Underrrepresented Founders Program. She believes that by using watsonx Assistant in her technology arsenal, WellnessWits will be a means to “digitize, standardize and automate care plans for patients dealing with chronic diseases.”

Diabetes management is a cornerstone of the company, but Oduba says that WellnessWits is similarly committed to impacting health issues including cancer, chronic pain, mental health, and obesity.

“By partnering with IBM, and academic leaders in institutions like The University of Texas, we aim to extend our reach and impact,” Oduba says.

In addition to the IBM program, Oduba and WellnessWits was selected for MassChallenge's recent cohort.

MassChallenge Startup Stories: WellnessWits Founder's Journey from Struggles to SuccessIn this inspiring 6-minute testimonial, we take you through the remarkable experience of Dr. Oduba, founder and CEO of ...

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Houston unicorn closes $421M to fuel first phase of flagship energy project

Heating Up

Houston geothermal unicorn Fervo Energy has closed $421 million in non-recourse debt financing for the first phase of its flagship Cape Station project in Beaver County, Utah.

Fervo believes Cape Station can meet the needs of surging power demand from data centers, domestic manufacturing and an energy market aiming to use clean and reliable power. According to the company, Cape Station will begin delivering its first power to the grid this year and is expected to reach approximately 100 megwatts of operating capacity by early 2027. Fervo added that it plans to scale to 500 megawatts.

The $421 million financing package includes a $309 million construction-to-term loan, a $61 million tax credit bridge loan, and a $51 million letter of credit facility. The facilities will fund the remaining construction costs for the first phase of Cape Station, and will also support the project’s counterparty credit support requirements.

Coordinating lead arrangers include Barclays, BBVA, HSBC, MUFG, RBC and Société Générale, with additional participation from Bank of America, J.P. Morgan and Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Bank, Limited, New York Branch.

“As demand for firm, clean, affordable power accelerates, EGS (Enhanced Geothermal Systems) is set to become a core energy asset class for infrastructure lenders,” Sean Pollock, managing director, project Finance at RBC Capital Markets, said in a news release. “Fervo is pioneering this step change with Cape Station, a vital contribution to American energy security that RBC is proud to support.”

The oversubscribed financing marks Cape Station’s shift from early-stage and bridge funding to a long-term, non-recourse capital structure, according to the news release.

“Non-recourse financing has historically been considered out of reach for first-of-a-kind projects,” David Ulrey, CFO of Fervo Energy, said in a news release. “Cape Station disrupts that narrative. With proven oil and gas technology paired with AI-enabled drilling and exploration, robust commercial offtake, operational consistency, and an unrelenting focus on health and safety, we have shown that EGS is a highly bankable asset class.”

Fervo continues to be one of the top-funded startups in the Houston area. The company has raised about $1.5 billion prior to the latest $421 million. It also closed a $462 million Series E in December.

According to Axios Pro, Fervo filed for an IPO that would value the company between $2 billion and $3 billion in January.

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This article first appeared on EnergyCapitalHTX.com.

Houston food giant Sysco to acquire competitor in $29 billion deal

Mergers & Acquisitions

Sysco, the nation's largest food distributor, will acquire supplier Restaurant Depot in a deal worth more than $29 billion.

The acquisition would create a closer link between Sysco and its customers that right now turn to Restaurant Depot for supplies needed quickly in an industry segment known as “cash-and-carry wholesale.”

Sysco, based in Houston, serves more than 700,000 restaurants, hospitals, schools, and hotels, supplying them with everything from butter and eggs to napkins. Those goods are typically acquired ahead of time based on how much traffic that restaurants typically see.

Restaurant Depot offers memberships to mom-and-pop restaurants and other businesses, giving them access to warehouses stocked with supplies for when they run short of what they've purchased from suppliers like Sysco.

It is a fast growing and high-margin segment that will likely mean thousands of restaurants will rely increasingly on Sysco for day-to-day needs.

Restaurant Depot shareholders will receive $21.6 billion in cash and 91.5 million Sysco shares. Based on Sysco’s closing share price of $81.80 as of March 27, 2026, the deal has an enterprise value of about $29.1 billion.

Restaurant Depot was founded in Brooklyn in 1976. The family-run business then known as Jetro Restaurant Depot, has become the nation's largest cash-and-carry wholesaler.

The boards of both companies have approved the acquisition, but it would still need regulatory approval.

Shares of Sysco Corp. tumbled 13% Monday to $71.26, an initial decline some industry analysts expected given the cost of the deal.

Houston researcher builds radar to make self-driving cars safer

eyes on the road

A Rice University researcher is giving autonomous vehicles an “extra set of eyes.”

Current autonomous vehicles (AVs) can have an incomplete view of their surroundings, and challenges like pedestrian movement, low-light conditions and adverse weather only compound these visibility limitations.

Kun Woo Cho, a postdoctoral researcher in the lab of Rice professor of electrical and computer engineering Ashutosh Sabharwal, has developed EyeDAR to help address such issues and enhance the vehicles’ sensing accuracy. Her research was supported in part by the National Science Foundation.

The EyeDAR is an orange-sized, low-power, millimeter-wave radar that could be placed at streetlights and intersections. Its design was inspired by that of the human eye. Researchers envision that the low-cost sensors could help ensure that AVs always pick up on emergent obstacles, even when the vehicles are not within proper range for their onboard sensors and when visibility is limited.

“Current automotive sensor systems like cameras and lidar struggle with poor visibility such as you would encounter due to rain or fog or in low-lighting conditions,” Cho said in a news release. “Radar, on the other hand, operates reliably in all weather and lighting conditions and can even see through obstacles.”

Signals from a typical radar system scatter when they encounter an obstacle. Some of the signal is reflected back to the source, but most of it is often lost. In the case of AVs, this means that "pedestrians emerging from behind large vehicles, cars creeping forward at intersections or cyclists approaching at odd angles can easily go unnoticed," according to Rice.

EyeDAR, however, works to capture lost radar reflections, determine their direction and report them back to the AV in a sequence of 0s and 1s.

“Like blinking Morse code,” Cho added. “EyeDAR is a talking sensor⎯it is a first instance of integrating radar sensing and communication functionality in a single design.”

After testing, EyeDAR was able to resolve target directions 200 times faster than conventional radar designs.

While EyeDAR currently targets risks associated with AVs, particularly in high-traffic urban areas, researchers also believe the technology behind it could complement artificial intelligence efforts and be integrated into robots, drones and wearable platforms.

“EyeDAR is an example of what I like to call ‘analog computing,’” Cho added in the release. “Over the past two decades, people have been focusing on the digital and software side of computation, and the analog, hardware side has been lagging behind. I want to explore this overlooked analog design space.”

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