Houston energy blockchain company announces $7.7M in funding, plans to expand to the Middle East

money moves

Data Gumbo, founded and led by Andrew Bruce, has announced its latest funding. Photo courtesy of Data Gumbo

A Houston-based tech company has announced another round of funding to support its blockchain network growth as well as to establish a presence in the Middle East.

Data Gumbo has closed its series B funding round totaling $7.7 million with follow-on investments led by Equinor Ventures. The round includes participation from Saudi Aramco Energy Ventures and Bay Area and Houston-based venture firm L37. The round's first close was announced in September 2020 at $4 million. The additional funds to close the Series B will be used to scale Data Gumbo to serve demand for GumboNet™ and GumboNet™ ESG. Additionally, Data Gumbo plans to establish a presence in the Middle East to cover expected demand growth in the region.

"The successful close of our series B is continued proof of the efficacy and booming interest in our ability to capture critical cost savings, deliver trust and provide transparency across commercial relationships," says Andrew Bruce, founder and CEO of Data Gumbo, in a news release. "Compounded by the growing demand for transparent, accurate sustainability data and the launch of our automated ESG measurement solution, GumboNet™ ESG, Data Gumbo's trajectory is well-positioned to serve our growing customer base by ensuring economic productivity and value. This infusion of capital will support our expansion efforts as we bring more international users to our network."

With this latest raise, Data Gumbo's total funding raised to date is $18.4 million.

"Data Gumbo's success is marked by a wide variety of business use cases and opportunities for expansion," says Bruce Niven, chief investment officer at Aramco Ventures, in the release. "Our continued investment is a testament to our continued support as the company attracts new customers, experiences further demand for its network and gains traction in new markets."

The company's technology features smart contract automation and execution, which reduces contract leakage, frees up working capital, enables real-time cash and financial management, and delivers provenance with unprecedented speed, accuracy, visibility and transparency, per the release.

"Data Gumbo is the market leader for smart contracts backed by blockchain, and the coming year will be a period of exponential growth for the company as they penetrate new industrial markets," says Kemal Farid, partner at L37, in the release. "We believe strongly that GumboNet will become the de facto network for smart contracts across industries for capturing value and solving enormous pain points in contractual relations. Additionally, as companies move to meet increasing sustainability measurement demands and ESG improvements, there is a huge growth path available for Data Gumbo with the launch of GumboNet ESG."

Earlier this year, the company announced its environmental, social and corporate governance tracking and reporting tool.

"Equinor's recent pilot at the Johan Sverdrup field has demonstrated that GumboNet can create strong value for the partnership," says Gareth Burns, head of Equinor Ventures, in the release. "Our follow-on investment confirms Equinor Ventures' confidence in Data Gumbo's solution for our company and the broader energy industry."

Growing Houston blockchain startup has raised $4 million to go toward supporting sales growth. Graphic courtesy of Data Gumbo

Exclusive: Houston blockchain startup closes $4M series B round led by new investor

money moves

An industrial blockchain-as-a-service startup based in Houston has closed a series B funding round thanks to support from both new and returning investors.

Data Gumbo Corp., which uses its blockchain network GumboNet to optimize smart contracts for oil and gas supply chains, announced its first close in its $4 million series B funding round that was led by new investor L37, which has operations in the Bay Area and in Houston. The round also saw contribution from returning investors Equinor Ventures and Saudi Aramco Energy Venture.

The funds will go toward growing Data Gumbo's sales team, which has been busy with the company's growth. While providing their own set of challenges and obstacles, both the pandemic and drop in oil prices meant oil and gas companies are prioritizing lean operations — something DataGumbo is able to help with.

"The opportunity in all this is companies have got to cut expenses," Andrew Bruce, CEO and founder, tells InnovationMap. "What's happened to us is our sales have absolutely exploded — in a good way. We have a huge number of leads, and we have to be able to deliver on those leads."

Bruce says leading the sales growth is Bill Arend, who was hired Data Gumbo's chief commercial officer this spring. Data Gumbo also recently announced that Richard Dobbs, 30-year veteran of McKinsey and former director of the McKinsey Global Institute, has joined the board as chairman.

"Dobbs is a recognized strategic industry thinker," Bruce says in a release. "His distinct expertise will lend structure, support and validation to Data Gumbo as we experience aggressive company growth."

Of course, fundraising in this unprecedented time, isn't easy. Bruce says he and his team were able to succeed thanks to a new investor, L37, which came from an introduction within Bruce's network.

"Data Gumbo is the category leader for industrial smart contracts, which is an inevitable next step in digital transformation of the oil and gas industry," says Kemal Farid, a partner in L37, in a statement. "There is a lack of transparency, visibility and accuracy between counterparts of contracts that increases the costs of doing business and this has been greatly exacerbated by the current business landscape. We look forward to applying our experience to propel the company along its journey to bring transactional certainty and cost efficiency to commercial relationships."

Additionally, Bruce says he's very proud of his company's return investors, who are also clients of DataGumbo.

"[We also have] the continuous support by our original investors — Aramco and Equinor — they invested in us not just once but twice," Bruce says. "They have been tremendously supportive, not just from an investor perspective, but also proving the value. We've got multiple projects starting with both of those companies."

Bruce says he already has eyes for another venture capital round — perhaps sometime next year — for Data Gumbo, which has raised $14.8 million to date. However, the company isn't far from profitability and growth from that avenue too.

"We're going to have the luxury of choice," Bruce says. "We want to grow as aggressively as possible so we are probably going to go the venture capital route."


GumboNet: Smart Contacts Made Simplewww.youtube.com

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Oxy's $1.3B Texas carbon capture facility on track to​ launch this year

gearing up

Houston-based Occidental Petroleum is gearing up to start removing CO2 from the atmosphere at its $1.3 billion direct air capture (DAC) project in the Midland-Odessa area.

Vicki Hollub, president and CEO of Occidental, said during the company’s recent second-quarter earnings call that the Stratos project — being developed by carbon capture and sequestration subsidiary 1PointFive — is on track to begin capturing CO2 later this year.

“We are immensely proud of the achievements to date and the exceptional record of safety performance as we advance towards commercial startup,” Hollub said of Stratos.

Carbon dioxide captured by Stratos will be stored underground or be used for enhanced oil recovery.

Oxy says Stratos is the world’s largest DAC facility. It’s designed to pull 500,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide from the air and either store it underground or use it for enhanced oil recovery. Enhanced oil recovery extracts oil from unproductive reservoirs.

Most of the carbon credits that’ll be generated by Stratos through 2030 have already been sold to organizations such as Airbus, AT&T, All Nippon Airways, Amazon, the Houston Astros, the Houston Texans, JPMorgan, Microsoft, Palo Alto Networks and TD Bank.

The infrastructure business of investment manager BlackRock has pumped $550 million into Stratos through a joint venture with 1PointFive.

As it gears up to kick off operations at Stratos, Occidental is also in talks with XRG, the energy investment arm of the United Arab Emirates-owned Abu Dhabi National Oil Co., to form a joint venture for the development of a DAC facility in South Texas. Occidental has been awarded up to $650 million from the U.S. Department of Energy to build the South Texas DAC hub.

The South Texas project, to be located on the storied King Ranch, will be close to industrial facilities and energy infrastructure along the Gulf Coast. Initially, the roughly 165-square-mile site is expected to capture 500,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide per year, with the potential to store up to 3 billion metric tons of CO2 per year.

“We believe that carbon capture and DAC, in particular, will be instrumental in shaping the future energy landscape,” Hollub said.

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

New app by Sports Illustrated grants access to 700 sports courts in Houston

Goal!

A new sports center booking app CatchCorner, powered by Sports Illustrated, enables sports enthusiasts in Houston to seamlessly secure a spot for a quick game without membership fees.

It soft-launched in Houston this spring and, according to co-founder and chief operating officer Maya Azouri, has been a huge success.

"The Houston expansion has been jaw-dropping," she said. "Up until now, CatchCorner’s launch in New York City had been our most successful market, but Houston has launched on par with it."

Within a 30-day period this summer, over 30,000 users join the app, Azouri noted, adding that the app would include 700 unique recreational spaces users can choose from in the city.

"There’s a real sports culture here, with athletes of all levels from casual weekend players to competitive amateurs and even pros. The diversity of the sports community, combined with the number of high-quality facilities across the city, makes it a perfect fit for CatchCorner," she said.

CatchCorner in Houston offers bookings for basketball, volleyball, soccer, pickleball, padel, baseball, badminton, and tennis, with plans to include golf simulators and ice rink sports soon. The Zone Sports, Toros HTX, PAC Gym, and Houston Pickleball Center are among the most popular venues.

Using the app is a snap. Once you pick your sport, venues with available slots are listed including distance from you with the booking schedules in the results so there are no surprises. The slots can go fast, so occasional error messages pop up when trying to book, but it's otherwise a three-click process. CatchCorner also helpfully includes a picture of the facilities while booking.

CatchCorner announced Google integration in June that lets users book through the app directly from searches when they look up specific venues. This is slightly less intuitive to use than the app, but it does ultimately work in both mobile and desktops versions. Either way, it greatly streamlines the booking process for people who just want to schedule a quick pickup game somewhere.

"It’s especially useful for casual players or people who want to organize something on short notice," said Azouri. "Whether it’s a weekend basketball run, a weekday futsal match, or a spontaneous pickleball game with friends, CatchCorner makes it easy to coordinate without the usual logistical headaches.

"Some feedback here has been that we’re like 'Expedia for sports.' It’s because booking a flight online is that easy, booking your next game or workout should be just as simple."

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This article originally appeared on CultureMap.com.

10 Houston billionaires make Forbes' list of richest Americans in 2025

The Rich List

America's wealthiest billionaires are $1.2 trillion richer in 2025, bringing their collective worth to a staggering $6.6 trillion. And Houston's own Richard Kinder has become the richest billionaire in the city, according to the new Forbes 400.

The Kinder Morgan chairman is the 11th richest Texas resident and ranks as the 108th richest American. Kinder also dethroned Tilman Fertitta to claim the title as the wealthiest Houstonian.

The annual Forbes 400 list is a definitive ranking of the wealthiest Americans, using interviews, financial data, and documentation provided by billionaires and their companies.

Kinder's wealth

The publication estimates Kinder's net worth at $10.6 billion, up from $8.1 billion last year. He also appears among Forbes' separate list of the richest billionaires in the world.

"It’s been a year unlike any we’ve seen in the four decades we’ve tracked America’s billionaire class,” said Forbes senior editor Chase Peterson-Withorn in a press release. "The super-rich at the very top are richer than ever — and between the White House and the booming stock market, they’re as powerful as they’ve ever been."

Kinder, 80, co-founded oil and gas pipeline firm Kinder Morgan in 1997, which is now known as one of the largest American energy infrastructure companies. He stepped down as CEO in 2015, though he still chairs the board of directors.

Kinder and his wife, Nancy, also founded Houston-based nonprofit the Kinder Foundation in 1997. The organization provides "major gifts to public causes with the intention of helping people realize healthy and rewarding lives," according to its website.

In May 2025, the Kinders pledged $150 million to Texas Children's Hospital and MD Anderson to create the Kinder Children's Cancer Center.

"Our philanthropic efforts center on supporting transformational projects in Houston, and this initiative exemplifies that mission in every way," said Kinder in a press release. "We were deeply impressed by the extraordinary leadership and unwavering commitment of both UT MD Anderson and Texas Children’s to pursue a bold, collaborative model of care. It is a rare and powerful moment when two leading organizations come together to create something entirely new – something capable of reshaping the future of pediatric cancer care."

The richest Houstonians

In all, 43 Texas billionaires made it on the 2025 Forbes 400 list, and 10 are based in the Houston metro.

Hospitality honcho Fertitta, 68, is the second-richest billionaire in Houston, and his net worth has jumped from $10.1 billion last year to $11 billion in 2025. He owns the Golden Nugget Casinos, the Houston Rockets, Texas-based restaurant and entertainment company Landry's, and also serves as the U.S. Ambassador to Italy.

"Serving as President Trump's ambassador to Italy 'is a real job,' says Fertitta, who personally oversaw the renovation of Villa Taverna, the ambassador's residence in Rome," Forbes wrote in his profile.

Fertitta most recently put his ritzy 250-foot-long superyacht on the market for about $192 million, with Forbes saying he "has a bigger one on order."

Here's how the rest of Houston's billionaires fared on this year's list:

  • Oil tycoon Jeffery Hildebrand ties for No. 123 nationally with an estimated net worth of $10 billion. Last year: $7.6 billion.
  • Toyota mega-dealer Dan Friedkin ranks 128th nationally with an estimated net worth of $9.7 billion. Last year: $7.6 billion.
  • Houston pipeline heir Randa Duncan Williams ranks 130th with an estimated net worth of $9.5 billion. Fellow pipeline heirs Dannine Avara and Milane Frantz tie for 135th nationally. Each has an estimated net worth of $9.4 billion. Scott Duncan ranks No. 141 with a $9.2 billion estimated net worth.
  • Houston Texans owner Janice McNair ranks 201st nationally with an estimated net worth of $7.3 billion. Last year: $6.2 billion.
  • Energy exploration chief exec George Bishop of The Woodlands ranks No. 325 with an estimated net worth of $4.7 billion. Last year: $5 billion.

Richest billionaires elsewhere in Texas

The richest person in America in 2025 is none other than Austin-based Elon Musk. Musk, 54, saw his net worth skyrocket to $428 billion this year, or $184 billion more than his 2024 net worth. He claimed the No. 1 spot for the fourth time.

Walmart heiress Alice Walton of Fort Worth was dubbed the wealthiest woman in America for 2025. Walton, 75, simultaneously holds the title as the richest woman in the world. Forbes estimates Walton's net worth at $106 billion (up from $89.2 billion last year) and proclaims her as the first female centibillionaire (a person with a 12-digit fortune) in America. Now that's wealth.

"Tariffs. Inflation. Slowing employment. None of it has hit the fortunes of America’s billionaires," Forbes said. "A decade ago, when it took $1.7 billion to make The Forbes 400, a net worth of $3.8 billion was comfortably within the top half of the ranking — now that lofty sum is the minimum required."

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This article originally appeared on CultureMap.com.

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