The Artemis Fund, which focuses on providing access to capital to women-led companies, made its first investment. Getty Images

The new female-founded venture capital fund that launched in Houston in April has made its first investment. The Artemis Fund led Burbank, California-based U-Nest's $2 million Seed round.

U-Nest is a user-friendly app that allows for users to create a 529 college savings plan in less than five minutes and $25. This tool provides access to financial tools that previously were only available to wealthy families who could afford financial advisers.

Syndicate partners, including The Draper Dragon Fund, Band of Angels, and Pasadena Angels, also contributed to the round.

"I'm very excited that The Artemis Fund has led my seed round because they've proven to be an amazing partner that brings a lot of value to the company beyond the money," says U-Nest founder, Ksenia Yudena, in a news release. "During the fundraising process, they made a lot of strategic introductions to the partners and advisers that helped us grow the business. They also coordinated the due diligence with other co-investors that made the process very smooth."

Prior to launching her startup, Yudena managed $1.2 bullion in business as vice president at Capital Group America Funds, and she has over 10 years of experience in financial services.

"I believe that we need more female led funds, because they understand the needs and struggles of the female founders," Yudena continues in the release. "We're on the same page in all matters related to the fundraising and building the successful company."

The Artemis Fund was founded by Stephanie Campbell, Leslie Goldman, and Diana Murakhovskaya, all of whom have years in investment experience from various institutions across the country and here in Houston. The three women wanted to provide a platform to funnel funds to female-founded startups that are constantly overlooked by other VC funds. Only 2 percent of funding from VC firms goes to women-led institutions, the release cites.

Goldman was introduced to the U-Nest team through one of the startup's advisers.

"We are thrilled to announce this as our first investment," Goldman says in the release. "We just need 14 more founders like Ksenia. With her drive, determination, deep expertise in this area, and her ability to attract top, seasoned talent, she sets the bar high for us as we look for additional portfolio companies."

U-Nest's mission of making financial information more accessible to families who need it most was especially attractive for the fund.

"Through her experience, [Yudena] saw a real world need for access to education planning and developed an incredibly impressive product to meet that need," Goldman continues in the release. "U-Nest squarely aligns with the Artemis thesis: stellar management team, traction with a product that will have tremendous impact on people's lives, scalable with a large addressable market opportunity, and a realistic exit strategy that can produce outsized returns."

Peter Mansfield serves as U-Nest's chief marketing officer and previously served as a consultant to Marqeta, which has a slew of successful clients — to the tune of Square, Affirm, DoorDash, Kabbage and Instacart — and recently closed a Series E valuation of $2 billion.

"We couldn't be more excited to have Artemis lead our round. From our first meeting it was clear that The Artemis Fund team understood our mission to eradicate the college loan crisis and shared our desire to champion women entrepreneurs," Mansfield says in the release. "The Artemis Fund is a perfect fit for U-Nest."

The Artemis Fund was founded by Diana Murakhovskaya (left), Leslie Goldman (center), and Stephanie Campbell.Courtesy of The Artemis Fund

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Intuitive Machines lands $9.8M contract to help complete orbital transfer vehicle

space funding

Houston-based Intuitive Machines, which rang the NASDAQ opening bell today, has secured a $9.8 million Phase Two government contract for its orbital transfer vehicle.

The contract will push the project through its Critical Design Review phase, which is the final engineering milestone before manufacturing can begin, according to a news release from the company.

Intuitive Machine's orbital transfer vehicle (OTV) is designed to transfer payloads between Earth's orbit and the Moon and is built around the company's Nova-C lander, which has been a part of two successful lunar missions.

“Our OTV is a direct evolution of our lunar surface delivery missions—positioning us to expand into the rapidly growing market for in-space logistics,” Steve Altemus, Intuitive Machines CEO, said in the release. “We’re leveraging our flight-proven technology to operate a mission-ready service that delivers customer payloads across orbits—from Earth to the Moon and beyond.”

The company says the fast, flexible vehicle could be used for orbital servicing, logistics and communications in medium earth orbit, low lunar orbit and a variety of other destinations.

Intuitive Machines expects to begin manufacturing and flight integration as soon as 2026, once the design review is completed.

The non-NASA contract is for an undisclosed government customer, which Intuitive Machines says reinforces its "strategic move to diversify its customer base and deliver orbital capabilities that span commercial, civil, and national security space operations."

The company has received millions from NASA for its lunar rover, lunar lander, science and technology payloads, and communications and navigation services over the years. It also recently landed up to $10 million to help develop an Earth re-entry vehicle and in-space biomanufacturing lab from Texas's Space Exploration and Research Fund.

Earlier this month, the City of Houston agreed to add three acres of commercial space for Intuitive Machines at the Houston Spaceport at Ellington Airport. Read more here.

Houston tech jobs to grow in 2025 as Texas leads U.S. in new tech employment

by the numbers

Tech employment in the Houston metro area is expected to climb by more than two percent this year, according to a new projection.

CompTIA’s State of the Tech Workforce 2025 report forecasts the Houston area will employ 158,176 tech professionals this year, compared with an estimated 154,905 last year. That would be an increase of 2.1 percent.

These numbers take into account tech workers across all industries, not just those employed in the tech sector. Many of these professionals do work in the tech sector (40 percent), with the remainder (60 percent) employed in other sectors.

Even more impressive than the year-to-year increase is the jump in Houston-area tech employment from 2019 to 2025. During that period, tech employment grew 16.6 percent, according to the report.

The Houston area ranks eighth among major metro areas for the number of tech jobs expected to be added this year (3,271). Dallas rises to No. 1 for the most jobs expected to be added (projection of 13,997 new tech jobs in 2025), with Austin at No. 5 (7,750 new jobs) and San Antonio at No. 21 (1,617 new jobs).

On a state-by-state basis, Texas ranks first for the number of tech workers projected to be added this year (40,051)—up significantly from the 8,181 jobs estimated to be added in 2024—and second for the size of the tech workforce last year (972,747), the report says. The Lone Star State lands at No. 4 for the highest percentage (24 percent) of tech jobs expected to be added from 2025 to 2035.

Backed by a nearly $1.4 billion commitment from the state, the semiconductor industry is helping propel the growth of tech jobs in Houston and throughout Texas.

In 2023, the state launched the Texas Semiconductor Innovation Fund. The fund provides incentives to encourage semiconductor research, design and manufacturing in Texas. State lawmakers allocated $698.3 million for the fund. Another $660 million in state money will help establish semiconductor research and development centers at the University of Texas at Austin and Texas A&M University.

“Texas has the innovation, the infrastructure, and the talent to continue to lead the American resurgence in critical semiconductor manufacturing and the technologies of tomorrow,” Gov. Greg Abbott said in a release.

The Houston area is benefiting from the semiconductor boom.

For example, chip manufacturer Nvidia and electronics maker Foxconn plan to build a factory in Houston that will produce AI supercomputers.

Nvidia said in April that the AI supercomputers “are the engines of a new type of data center created for the sole purpose of processing artificial intelligence — AI factories that are the infrastructure powering a new AI industry.”

Meanwhile, tech giant Apple plans to open a 250,000-square-foot factory in Houston that will manufacture servers for its data centers in support of Apple’s AI business. The Houston plant is part of a four-year, $500 million nationwide expansion that Apple unveiled in February.