Houston innovator: 3 reasons you should incorporate estate planning to your company benefits

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Why you should be offering your employees estate and legacy planning tools. Photo courtesy of The Postage

As priorities for employees have shifted as part of the Great Resignation the need for non-traditional benefits has continued to arise. Employees are expecting their personal and family wellness to be at the core of what their employers are offering. This is a big consideration when deciding to stay or leave a company. While HR professionals and employers are realizing they need to re-evaluate their benefits and how they keep top talent, there’s one key benefit that is typically missed that is a life necessity for all, estate and legacy planning.

Given today’s uber competitive talent market, there’s an opportunity for companies to embrace new benefits that go beyond the typical and support vital needs, such as financial wellness and estate planning. Taking the next step by providing and connecting employees with the right resources can make all the difference. Estate and legacy planning goes beyond creating a will, it’s about end to end care of life and legacy. It helps transition wealth and wisdom across generations. It handles your affairs, finances, your digital assets, protects your children and pets, and ensures your wishes are carried out if you are temporarily unavailable or permanently incapable of handling them. It’s as critical and as necessary as insurance yet is not typically included as a key employee benefit.

Why should you add estate and legacy planning as part of your employee benefits? Here’s the top three reasons to consider:

1. Create value for your employees and their families

Financial wellness and security are the utmost important for employees. In fact, it’s one of the most-valued benefits, based on a recent survey Morgan Stanley found that 90 percent of employees want their company to prioritize financial benefits. Are you going to be one of the 95 percent of HR executives that plan to do so? If so, there are multiple ways that a company can help its employees to build wealth and protect their financial security through traditional benefits such as retirement savings plans, health insurance, voluntary life, and disability insurance, and more. But additional benefits like estate and legacy planning should be a part of this assortment of benefits that support protecting employees and their families’ finances - by helping them build and protect their financial and personal legacies.

Employers can show that they value and support their employee’s financial success and security by providing tools and resources that make it simple to handle these historically daunting tasks and keep them organized throughout life, which allows employees to have peace of mind for their families’ future, financial and beyond.

2. Stand out among your competitors

Most employers do not provide legacy and estate planning services. Only 12 percent of employers provide these types of benefits, yet over 72 percent of those who are not offered estate planning services by their employer, would be interested in using them if offered. That’s a huge percentage of your employee population that would benefit from this service while differentiating you from other employers and provide an opportunity for your company to show just how much you value your employees’ futures.

3. Show you care about your employees

More people have begun to self-reflect on what is truly important to them as a part of the Great Resignation. Now, employee desires have evolved beyond a high salary with decent benefits. Employees want to feel valued beyond the work they do, and even further than that, they need an environment where their career, their loved ones, and their own being is supported. These psychological needs are translating into demands for companies to provide more thoughtful employee benefits packages.

A study conducted by Morgan Stanley shows how perceptions of employees and HR executives alike have transformed, with 9 in 10 HR executives saying their company needs to do a better job helping employees understand how to maximize their financial benefits. Proving to your employees that you care about them beyond the ‘now’–beyond simply providing short-term benefits that exclusively affect them in the present day–leverages your company’s commitment to caring for your workers.

For people that struggle with organizing their property and wealth, estate planning can help visualize their total net worth. However, benefits that not only anticipate employees’ future financial needs but also organize their family network will drive continual engagement within your company and prove genuine care for your workers. For example, The Postage helps people plan their legacy. On top of estate planning, customers also have the ability to store and document important life events and memories, or even utilize our message planning feature where they can send timely notes to their family at a future date.

Employees want to feel valued beyond their work and taking the steps to help them build physical and financial legacies for both themselves and their loved ones will put your company one step ahead of everyone else. It is time for estate planning to join the conversation for employee benefits packages and helping employees proactively plan their future could be the cornerstone of attracting and retaining diverse talent.

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Emily Cisek is the founder and CEO of The Postage, a tech-enabled, easy-to-use estate planning tool.

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Houston VC funding nears $1B in first half of 2026, report says

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Despite a weak second quarter, venture capital funding for Houston-area startups approached $1 billion in the first half of 2026, the region’s highest first-half total since 2022, according to the latest PitchBook-NVCA Venture Monitor.

This year’s first-half total of $962.4 million represented a nearly 8 percent increase over last year’s first-half total of $891.7 million. Dating back to 2016, this year’s first-half haul lags behind only 2021 and 2022 for the most first-half funding.

Houston’s year-over-year VC jump of 73 percent in the first quarter of 2026 more than made up for the year-over-year drop of 34 percent in the second quarter of 2026, according to the report.

Deal count tells a more encouraging story: Houston startups closed 102 deals in the first half, up from 93 a year earlier and the region’s busiest first half since 2022. However, the average deal size shrank, as no single funding source dominated the total.

Keep in mind that PitchBook and NVCA routinely revise quarterly numbers upward to reflect deals that were reported after a previous quarter’s data was published. So, in the case of Houston, numbers initially reported for the first quarter of 2026 may not match newly reported numbers.

Perhaps the most notable Houston-area deal announced in the first half of this year was Cart.com’s $180 million growth equity investment, led by Springcoast Partners. Cart.com is an e-commerce platform and logistics provider.

PitchBook-NVCA data shows Houston’s VC activity is growing modestly, delivering better numbers in the first half of 2026 versus 2024 and 2025, but it still sits below the highs of 2021 and 2022. This is one sign that so far in 2026, the national VC boom isn’t benefiting non-hub markets like Houston the way it’s boosting some hub markets, especially Silicon Valley and New York City.

Nationwide, AI dominated VC funding in the first half of this year. The sector made up 86 percent of VC from January through June. The report notes that the markets have still struggled to unlock IPOs, with SpaceX being the biggest exception, and few M&A deals outside health care have been significant.

14 climatech startups join Greentown Houston in first half of 2026

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Climatech incubator Greentown Labs reports that 14 startups have joined its Houston community so far this year.

The companies are among 30 new startups to have joined Greentown Houston and Greentown Boston in 2026. Four of the companies are headquartered in Houston.

The startups are working on a range of "hydrogen-powered heavy-duty transport to AI-driven grid interconnection," according to Greentown.

The local startups that joined Greentown Houston include:

  • Houston-based Focis AI, which transforms industrial laser scans into structured asset intelligence to automatically identify, classify and map components in refineries and plants
  • Houston-based Iron Lattice, which develops next-generation memory technology for AI and high-performance computing that improves energy efficiency, endurance and scalability while remaining compatible with existing semiconductor manufacturing
  • Houston-based Orbital Arc, which is developing a new ion engine designed to improve the efficiency and scalability of spacecraft propulsion from low Earth orbit to deep space
  • Houston-based Sustain Energy LLC, which delivers cleaner, lower-cost fuel to industrial customers in pipeline-absent, underserved markets, cutting their energy costs and emissions with no infrastructure investment on their end

Other startups from around the world joined the Houston incubator in the same time period, including:

  • Ankara-based AIS Field, which develops robotic, AI-assisted non-destructive inspection systems, including submersible tank and boiler crawlers
  • San Francisco-based Armada AI, which builds rapidly deployable modular and edge data centers that run on local, stranded, or renewable power
  • San Francisco-based Armeta, which turns complex engineering drawings and legacy documentation into structured, usable data
  • Pittsburgh-based Atlas Robotics, which develops a Physical AI platform that powers autonomous material-handling robots and AI-guided forklifts
  • Ghana-based Cocoa Potash, which transforms high-emissions agricultural waste from cocoa, coconut, and palm-nut into organic potash, fertilizer and renewable energy
  • Israel-based Criaterra, which produces low-carbon, cement-free building materials
  • Italy-based ETAK, which manufactures modular reactors that convert solid waste into clean syngas
  • Kenya-based FelixFusion, which uses its Felix platform to model every grid connection point, including capacity, upgrade costs, and constraints
  • San Diego-based Gemini Energy, which builds next-generation fuel cells for data-center power
  • Tokyo-based Hibot, which develops robotic systems for inspecting and maintaining infrastructure in hazardous, hard-to-access environments
  • Austin-based Sheetak, which designs and manufactures thermoelectric coolers, generators, and assemblies for solid-state cooling and energy harvesting
  • The Netherlands-based ToPerform, which makes AI-powered, non-intrusive fouling sensors that monitor pipelines around the clock and predict the optimal cleaning time

Another 16 startups joined Greentown's Boston incubator. See the full list of new members here.

More than 100 startups joined Greentown last year, according to an end-of-year reflection shared by Greentown CEO Georgina Campbell Flatter. Read more about them here.

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

$12M pharmaceutical manufacturing facility to be built in Sugar Land

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A nearly $12 million drug manufacturing facility is coming to Sugar Land.

City leaders in Sugar Land recently approved a $1.3 million performance-based incentive for DeliverIt Group, a Sugar Land-based provider of specialty pharmacy, infusion therapy and clinical care services, for the development of the 60,000-square-foot facility.

The facility, which will be registered with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), will compound medication. The process of drug compounding combines, mixes or alters ingredients to create a medication tailored to a certain patient. A compounded drug is created when an FDA-approved drug can’t meet a patient’s needs.

The facility, which will employ 55 people, will expand DeliverIt’s offerings from specialty pharmacy and infusion services to advanced pharmaceutical manufacturing. In a press release, the City of Sugar Land says the facility reinforces the suburb’s status as a hub for life sciences and health care innovation.

DeliverIt, founded in 2010, already employs about 60 people.

The $1.3 million incentive, to be distributed over the course of 10 years, is being funded through the Sugar Land Development Corporation’s 4A sales tax program.

“The addition of a pharmaceutical manufacturing operation of this caliber reflects the type of targeted growth we want to see in Sugar Land,” Jennifer Alexander, business development manager for the City of Sugar Land, said in a news release. “Our focus on smart, strategic investment means supporting life sciences innovators in ways that maximize existing assets while driving long-term community prosperity.”

The current size of the U.S. drug-compounding market is estimated at $7.42 billion, and it’s projected to climb to $12.79 billion by 2035, according to Towards Healthcare Research and Consulting.

Drug compounding is gaining momentum due to increases in personalized medicine and personal treatment approaches, with growth being supported by aging populations and the rise of chronic illnesses, Towards Healthcare says.

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