3 Houston innovators to know this week

who's who

This week's roundup of Houston innovators includes John Chappell of BlockApps, Kyra Doolan of Texas HALO Fund, and Shaun Noorian of Empower Pharmacy. Courtesy photos

Editor's note: In this week's roundup of Houston innovators to know, I'm introducing you to three local innovators across industries — from venture capital to pharmacy — recently making headlines in Houston innovation.

John Chappell, director of energy business development at BlockApps

Siloed data, lack of consistency, and confusing regulations are all challenges blockchain can address, says this expert. Photo courtesy

Houston has all the potential to lead the energy transition — it just needs to make sure it has all the right ingredients. According to John Chappell, a key ingredient is blockchain. He explains in a guest article for InnovationMap.

"Houston has earned its title as the Energy Transition Capital of the world, and now it has an opportunity to be a global leader of technology innovation when it comes to carbon emissions reporting," Chappell writes. "The oil and gas industry has set ambitious goals to reduce its carbon footprint, but the need for trustworthy emissions data to demonstrate progress is growing more apparent — and blockchain may hold the keys to enhanced transparency." Click here to read more.

Kyra Doolan, managing director at Texas HALO Fund

Kyra Doolan joins the Houston Innovators Podcast to discuss the huge opportunities for innovation within femtech. Photo via LinkedIn

When venture capitalist and angel investing expert Kyra Doolan started navigating her own fertility journey, her eyes were opened to a huge market opportunity across femtech. As managing director at Houston-based Texas HALO Fund, she took these opportunities to her team of investors.

"A lot of the issues that face women, are things that are not talked about," she says on this week's episode of the Houston Innovators Podcast, referencing things like miscarriage, injury during childbirth, etc. "For a lot time, women just sat back if they had these issues, and they kept it to themselves, so those problems weren't being addressed."

Doolan says she and other women aren't taught how to manage their own fertility journey, but it doesn't have to be that way. Click here to read more.

Shaun Noorian, founder and CEO of Empower Pharmacy

Empower Pharmacy has opened its new 86,000-square-foot facility features innovative technology for purifying water, automation, and more. Photo courtesy of Empower Pharmacy

Houston-based Empower Pharmacy has celebrated the grand opening of its new $55 million, 86,000-square-foot facility that includes extensive automation, a top-of-the line cleanroom, and equipment that generates purified water, clean steam, and clean compressed air. The space also features a warehouse capable of storing at least nine months of raw pharmaceutical ingredients to minimize supply chain problems.

"This innovative facility, combined with our more than 500 dedicated employees, enables us to increase our operational capacity, allowing us to prepare thousands of custom prescriptions each day for millions of patients across the country," Shaun Noorian, founder and CEO of Empower Pharmacy, says in a news release. "We are setting a new standard for compounded medicine, striving to achieve a superior pharmaceutical experience, from order placement to delivery."

The new Empower Pharmacy facility, at 7601 N. Sam Houston Parkway W., opened earlier this month. Click here to read more.

Kyra Doolan joins the Houston Innovators Podcast to discuss the huge opportunities for innovation within femtech. Photo via LinkedIn

Houston investor shares why she's focused on funding the future of femtech

HOUSTON INNOVATORS PODCAST EPISODE 98

Successful investors find gaps in the marketplace and direct funds into startups and technologies resolving those gaps. For Kyra Doolan, managing director at Houston-based Texas HALO Fund, femtech represents a huge opportunity for innovation.

While Texas HALO Fund has invested in femtech since its first fund in 2012, Doolan shares on the show how she personally saw an investment opportunity with kegg, a fertility tracking device. Doolan says she and other women aren't taught how to manage their own fertility journey, but it doesn't have to be that way.

"I was at a stage in my life where my eyes were open to the gaps that are out there and the conversations that weren't being had," she says. "In looking into Kegg, it showed me what the market was and how many gapes there were in the market just around fertility."

Texas HALO Fund has a few femtech companies in its portfolio now, and the most recent addition is Houston-based Work & Mother, a company that builds out fully-equipped nursing accommodations in office buildings.

Despite it's growing femtech portfolio, the fund is industry agnostic, though, Doolan says, about a third of the companies Texas HALO Fund invests in reside in the health tech space. What makes HALO different is its focus on early-stage startups.

"We like to get in early," Doolan says. "We're, what you would historically consider 'pre-VC,' but now that's getting a little bit blurred. ... We're some of the earlier capital that's invested, and we continue to make investment as the companies continue to subsequent rounds."

Doolan shares more on her passion for femtech, as well as her advice for founders looking for funding and potential female investors looking to get into investing on the episode. Listen to the full interview below — or wherever you stream your podcasts — and subscribe for weekly episodes.

Unlike past awards programs hosted by Ignite Healthcare Network, the Ignite Madness winners accepted their awards via video call. Photo courtesy of Ignite

Houston female-focused health tech pitch competition names big winners

winner, winner

From the comfort of their own homes, several female entrepreneurs accepted investment and pitch prizes at the finals of an inaugural awards program created by a Houston-based, woman-focused health organization.

Ahead of the Ignite Madness finals on Thursday, October 29, Houston-based Ignite Healthcare Network named nine finalists that then pitched for three investment prizes. The finalists included:

Eden Prairie, Minnesota-based Abilitech Medical — medical device company that creates assistive devices to aid those with upper-limb neuromuscular conditions or injuries.
New Orleans, Louisiana-based Chosen Diagnostics — a biotech company focusing on custom treatment. First, Chosen is focused on creating two novel biomarker diagnostic kits — one for gastrointestinal disease in premature infants.
San Francisco, California-based Ejenta — which uses NASA tech and artificial intelligence to enhance connected care.
Highland, Maryland-based Emergency Medical Innovation — a company focused on emergency medicine like Bleed Freeze, a novel device for more efficiently treating nosebleeds.
Columbia, Missouri-based Healium — an app to quickly reduce burnout, self-manage anxiety, and stress.
Farmington, Connecticut-based Nest Collaborative — digital lactation solutions and support.
Palo Alto, California-based Nyquist Data — a smart search engine to enable medical device companies to get FDA approvals faster.
New Orleans-Louisiana based Obatala Sciences — a biotech startup working with research institutions across the globe to advance tissue engineering and regenerative medicine.
Perth, Australia-based OncoRes — a company that's developing a technology to provide surgeons with real-time assessment of tissue microstructure.

The inaugural event that mixed health care and basketball — two vastly different industries with strong connections to women — attracted support from partners and sponsors, such as Intel, Accenture, Morgan Lewis, Houston Methodist, Johnson & Johnson Innovation, and more, according to Ayse McCracken, founder and board chair of Ignite.

"Our partners and sponsors are an integral part of our organization" says McCracken. "Without each and every one of them, the networks, resources, and commitment to advancing women leaders, we would not have grown so rapidly in just four years and our IGNITE Madness event would not enjoy this vibrant ecosystem that now surrounds female entrepreneurs."

First up in selecting their winner for their investment was Texas Halo Fund. Chosen Diagnostics took home the $50,000 investment.

"While we were impressed by everyone who pitched tonight, one company stood out to us," says Kyra Doolan, managing partner. "[Chosen Diagnostics] exemplifies what we are looking for: an innovative solution, a strong CEO, and a real addressable market."

The second monetary award was presented by Tom Luby, director of TMC Innovation. The award was an $100,000 investment from the TMC Venture Fund, as well as admission to TMCx. The recipient of the investment was OncoRes.

"We are absolutely blown away," says Katharine Giles, founder of Onco. "We've already got a great link to Texas and looking forward to more."

The largest monetary award that was on the table was presented by Wavemaker Three-Sixty Health, a leading Southern-California based, early stage venture capital firm, for $150,000. However, at the time of the announcement, Managing Partner Jay Goss decided to award four startups an undisclosed amount of investment. Goss says he and his team will meet with each company to establish an investment.

The companies that were recognized by Wavemaker were: Healium, Ejenta, Emergency Medical Innovation, and Nest Collaborative.

Lastly, Ignite itself had $27,500 cash awards to give out to the pitch competition winners. The funds will be distributed between the winners. OncoRes took first place, Abilitech came in second place, and Obatala Sciences took third place.

Here's how the health tech investing industry has had to rethink investing amid a global pandemic. Photo by Dwight C. Andrews/Greater Houston Convention and Visitors Bureau

Overheard: Experts share advice on investing in health tech amid the pandemic

Eavesdropping online

The coronavirus pandemic has upset countless industries, but if you zoom in on health tech you'll find a mix of opportunities and challenges for both health tech startups and investors.

On a virtual panel hosted by TMC Innovation and Ignite Healthcare Network, four female investors or founders discussed the health tech startup landscape. From advice for getting the attention of investors amid COVID-19 to inequities in health care and innovation, here's what the panel covered.

“I never thought I’d make an investment without meeting the founder face-to-face and visiting their site. The way I got comfortable with it was the opportunity was referred to me — it was a warm lead.”

— Karen Kerr, lead partner at Portfolia Rising America Fund. Kerr says those warm leads are more important now than ever, as is sharing a network.

“The first thing you need to do is understand our fund — or whatever fund you’re trying to go after — and pitch in a way that’s personal. You have to stand out from the beginning.”

— Kyra Doolan, managing director of Texas Halo Fund, says on reaching out to investors. She adds that she looks for a strong team, an innovative solution, a market need, and the terms of the deal. Meanwhile, red flags include if a startup says it has no competition, has unreasonable projections, is led by entrepreneurs who think they know everything, has an unwillingness to be upfront about COVID challenges, and doesn't have enough money in the bank.

“It’s important for companies to be upfront about the problems they’re facing — we all know these problems exist. Addressing that head-on with investors is a good way to go because having trust in a company you’re investing in is important.”

— Doolan continues on the importance of transparency between startup and investor.

“I’m looking for great entrepreneurs that are high integrity people. I’m looking to see that they really understand the industries they are in.”

— Kerr says on what she looks for in a founder. She adds that she tries to understand how they think and the advantages and disadvantages of their leadership are.

“You have to have the art of persuasion. You have this dream and vision — and there may not be anything there yet — but you need to be able to take people on this journey with you.”

— Damayanti Dipayana, CEO and co-founder of Manatee, a member of TMCx's 2020 cohort. She adds, representing the entrepreneur side of the table, that you really have to know yourself and your shortcomings.

“Any investor will look at it like if you can’t get the right people around and sell it to them, how are you going to uproot an industry.”

— Dipayana expands on the importance of growing your team and being persuasive.

“I think the pandemic has certainly shone a bright light on the inequities that exists, so solutions to these challenges are interesting things to think through.”

— Kerr says adding that the first investment from the Rising America Fund was into a fintech startup that serves underbanked communities.

“We’re seeing lower valuations maybe than we would have before this because the effects of this are going to go on for a long time, I would guess. Even when COVID starts to come down, the economic downturn is still going to exist.”

— Doolan says on where investment is at amid the pandemic.

“Ultimately if you want to have real bargaining power over your valuation, find other people who are interested.”

— Dipayana adds to the conversation about valuations. "If only one person interested, they are going to drive the valuation."

“Picking the right partners is such an important decision — don’t take that lightly just because they have money.”

—Chantell Preston, lead partner at Portfolio, co-founder and CEO of Facilities Management Group, and moderator of the event.

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Persona AI teams with Under Armour to protect next-gen robots

Future Fabrics

Houston-based Persona AI has cemented a partnership with sportswear manufacturer Under Armour to provide materials to protect future robots operating in dangerous conditions.

Through the partnership, Persona AI and Under Armour will launch a research initiative to explore whether advanced performance textiles can improve the durability and resilience of humanoid robots operating in harsh industrial environments.

“This is an opportunity to apply our innovation expertise in a new context,” Kyle Blakely, senior vice president of innovation, design studio, development, and testing at Under Armour, said in a news release. “Robotics presents a fascinating new design challenge, and we aim to play a leading role in shaping performance solutions for these environments. As humanoid systems take on more physically demanding roles, we see real potential to create new market opportunities, and we’re exploring how concepts like thermal management, abrasion resistance, and ﬂexibility translate beyond sport."

Founded in June 2024 by former NASA engineer Nicolaus Radford and former Figure AI CTO Jerry Pratt, Persona AI has quickly risen to be a top name in the development of humanoid robotic systems. Radford previously was the principal investigator at NASA’s Dexterous Robotics Lab before becoming CEO of Nauticus Robotics. While at NASA, he was the chief engineer behind Robotnaut 2, the first humanoid robot on the International Space Station.

Persona AI raised $25 million in preseed funding to develop humanoid robots designed to operate in shipyards and other industrial sites. The company has inked partnerships with HD Korea Shipbuilding & Offshore Engineering, HD Hyundai Robotic, and Korean manufacturing firm Vazil Company to create and deploy humanoid robots for complex welding tasks in shipyards.

These environments often involve exposure to dangerous chemicals, harsh weather and other potential hazards. The partnership between Persona AI and Under Armour will combine the clothing manufacturer’s development of resilient but flexible materials with the humanoid design of Persona AI.

Though best known for its sportswear, Under Armour produces a wide range of specialist fabrics and clothing, including an entire line used by the U.S. military. The company’s track record of developing high-performance fabrics built to withstand war zones and desert conditions makes it a strong partner in Persona AI’s latest endeavor.

“We chose to work with Under Armour because of their track record of innovation with these types of performance materials,” Radford said. “As we develop humanoids for intense and potentially hazardous environments, this collaboration helps us understand how advanced materials can enhance long-term reliability, thereby informing solutions to better protect workers in the ﬁeld.”

Global summit spotlights Houston's growing role in brain health, innovation

where to be

The Center for Houston’s Future and UTMB are bringing the Texas Brain Economy Summit back to Houston this summer to continue to position the region as a global leader in brain health.

The summit, held June 9-10 at the Texas Medical Center's Helix Park, will bring together more than 500 executives, researchers, policymakers and innovators from around the world to discuss the global brain economy.

Attendees can expect to hear from leaders of global institutions, including the World Economic Forum, U.S. Chamber of Commerce, McKinsey Health Institute, Global Brain Economy Initiative, Davos Alzheimer’s Collaborative, Business Collaborative for Brain Health (UsAgainstAlzheimer’s), Rice University, Memorial Hermann, MD Anderson and many others.

Day 1 of the conference will focus on "Enabling Human Flourishing & Economic Growth." Day 2 will focus on "Scaling Innovation & AI Solutions in the Brain Economy."

Keynotes will be delivered by:

Lexi Branson, vice president of health policy at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce
Kana Enomoto, director of the McKinsey Health Institute
Megan Henshall, founder of Google Experience Institute (Xi)
Ryan Howard, co-lead of Google Experience Institute (Xi)
Dr. Hani Jneid, John Sealy Distinguished Centennial Chair in Cardiology and vice president of cardiovascular operations at UTMB
Steve Kean, president and CEO of the Greater Houston Partnership
Dan Patrick, Lieutenant Governor of Texas
Jochen Reiser, president of UTMB
Thomas Seitz, senior partner of the McKinsey Health Institute

Other significant speakers include:

Rym Ayadi, founder and president of the Euro-Mediterranean Economists Association (EMEA) and co-founder of the Brain Capital Alliance
Arthur Evans, CEO and executive vice president of the American Psychological Association
David Gow, president and CEO of the Center for Houston’s Future (Gow is the founder and chairman of Gow Media, InnovationMap's parent company)
Bill McKeon, president and CEO of the Texas Medical Center
Jeff Merritt, head of urban transformation at the World Economic Forum
Joanne Pike, president and CEO of the Alzheimer’s Association
George Vradenburg, founding chairman of Davos Alzheimer’s Collaborative and co-founder, chairman and CEO of Us Against Alzheimer’s

The event is supported through Project Metis, which was launched by the Center for Houston’s Future last year. Led by Rice Brain Institute, The University of Texas Medical Branch's Moody Brain Health Institute and Memorial Hermann’s comprehensive neurology care department, the initiative aims to advance the understanding, prevention and treatment of the brain. It was developed on the heels of Texas voters overwhelmingly approving a ballot measure to launch the $3 billion, state-funded Dementia Prevention and Research Institute of Texas (DPRIT).

“Texas voters, by approving the state-funded Dementia Prevention Institute, have shown a strong commitment to brain health, as scientific advances continue daily. [Project Metis] aims to harness the Houston region’s unique strengths: its concentration of leading medical and academic institutions, a vibrant innovation ecosystem, and a history of entrepreneurial leadership in health and life sciences,” Gow said at the time.

Learn more about The Texas Brain Economy Summit and purchase tickets here.

Texas solar power poised to surpass coal for the first time in 2026

Powering Texas

Solar power promises to shine even brighter in Texas this year.

A new forecast from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) indicates that for the first time, annual power generation from utility-scale solar will surpass annual power generation from coal across the territory covered by the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT).

Solar generation is expected to reach 78 billion kilowatt-hours in 2026 in the ERCOT grid, compared with 60 billion kilowatt-hours for coal, the EIA forecast says. The ERCOT grid supplies power to about 90 percent of Texas, including the Houston area.

“Utility-scale solar generation has been increasing steadily in ERCOT as solar capacity additions help meet rapid electricity demand growth,” the forecast says.

Although natural gas remains the dominant source of electricity generation in ERCOT, accounting for an average 44 percent of electricity generation from 2021 to 2025, solar’s share of the generation mix rose from four percent to 12 percent. During the same period, coal’s share dropped from 19 percent to 13 percent.

EIA predicts about 40 percent of U.S. solar capacity, or 14 billion kilowatt-hours, added in 2026 will come from Texas.

Although EIA expects annual solar generation to exceed annual coal generation in 2026, solar surpassed coal in ERCOT on a monthly basis for the first time in March 2025, when solar generation totaled 4.33 billion kilowatt-hours and coal’s totaled 4.16 billion kilowatt-hours. Solar generation continued to exceed that of coal until August of that year.

“In 2026, we estimate that solar exceeded coal for the first time in March, and we forecast generation from solar installations in ERCOT will continue to exceed that from coal until December, when coal generation exceeds solar,” says EIA. “We expect solar generation to exceed that of coal for every month in 2027 except January and December.”

For 2027, EIA forecasts annual solar generation of 99 billion kilowatt-hours in the ERCOT grid, compared with 66 billion kilowatt-hours of annual coal generation.

In April, ERCOT projected almost 368 billion kilowatt-hours of demand in ERCOT’s territory by 2032. ERCOT’s all-time peak demand hit 85.5 billion kilowatt-hours in August 2023.

“Texas is experiencing exceptional growth and development, which is reshaping how large load demand is identified, verified, and incorporated into long-term planning,” ERCOT President and CEO Pablo Vegas said. “As a result of a changing landscape, we believe this forecast to be higher than expected … load growth.”

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This article first appeared on EnergyCapitalHTX.com.

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