Startup closes series A, Houston hospital taps into new tech, and more local innovation news

short stories

The Texas Medical Center is buzzing with recent innovation news, from Texas A&M University naming its buildings, Houston Methodist is introducing a new technology, and more. Photo by Dwight C. Andrews/Greater Houston Convention and Visitors Bureau

Houston's innovation ecosystem has been booming with news, and it's likely some might have fallen through the cracks.

For this roundup of short stories within Houston innovation, Deloitte is looking for tech companies to honor, a few Houston innovators have fresh funds, buildings rising in the Texas Medical Center now have names, and more.

Texas A&M names buildings in Innovation Plaza

Texas A&M University has named the buildings that will be a part of its Innovation Plaza. Photo courtesy of Texas A&M University System

The Texas A&M University System has revealed the names of the three buildings in the Texas A&M Innovation Plaza rising near the Texas Medical Center: Discovery Tower, Life Tower, and Horizon Tower.

Discovery Tower is the future home of A&M's EnMed program and is currently being renovated from an 18-story office building. Life Tower, which is expected to deliver in June 2022, is a 19-story, 714-bed student housing tower for Texas A&M medical students and Prairie View A&M University nursing students. Lastly, the Horizon Tower will be a 17-story, 485,000 square-foot integrated building that will feature a 13-story parking structure at the bottom.

SecurityGate closes series A

Ted Gutierrez, CEO of SecurityGate, announced the closing of his company's series A. Courtesy of Security Gate

SecurityGate.io, a software-as-a-service cybersecurity startup based in Houston, has closed its series A fundraising round. Houston Ventures led the capital raise. The amount raised has not been disclosed.

"It was very attractive to us how tightly tuned SecurityGate.io is to the needs of their customers," says Chip Davis, managing partner at Houston Ventures, in a news release. "Successful enterprise software companies generally know they are instruments of change for their customers."

Davis says the feedback from SecurityGate's customers was what sealed the deal.

"Digital transformation is no easy task in highly dynamic environments, especially when the risk of cyberattacks keeps rising daily. We're excited to partner with Houston Ventures who sees this market growing, and our clients that see our vision of the future," says Ted Gutierrez, CEO of SecurityGate, in the release.

Well Health launches at Houston Methodist

Thanks to tech from the West Coast, a Houston hospital has optimized virtual visits. Courtesy of Methodist Hospital/Facebook

Through a partnership with California-based WELL Health Houston Methodist was able up the ante on virtual visits during the pandemic. According to a news release, WELL enabled Houston Methodist to deliver over 260,000 text messages to patients Houston Methodist. The messages educated them about virtual care, schedule visits, and more.

"The ability to communicate back and forth, assuring patients that we are here for them both virtually and in-person is crucial as we continue to safely provide care in the midst of this pandemic," says Tesha Montgomery, vice president of operations and patient access at Houston Methodist, in the release.

Houston podcast network raises over $1 million

A podcast network with Houston ties has raised a seed round. Pexels

Lemonada Media, a podcast network with Houston roots that launched in September, has raised $1.38 million in a seed funding round led by Blue Collective, an early-stage venture capital firm. The fresh funds will allow for strategic growth for the two co-founders, Jessica Cordova Kramer, CEO, and Houstonian Stephanie Wittels Wachs, chief creative officer. Lemonada also plans to hire several positions including vice presidents across finance, production, and marketing.

"We are slated to be a content and talent incubator, spinning out new audio concepts and hit series that present humanity, unfiltered," says Wittels Wachs in a news release. "Now more than ever, people are hungry for content that addresses their lived experience, those that are mundane, and those that may be painful and isolating. Because our company was built off a mountain of personal grief and loss, Lemonada is well-situated to cut through the noise, create beautiful works of art, and make people laugh and feel less alone along the way."

Deloitte is looking for tech companies for annual competition

For the 26th year, Deloitte is looking for cutting edge tech companies. Photo courtesy of Deloitte

Deloitte has opened applications for its 2020 Technology Fast 500. The application is available online and closes July 17. To be eligible for the award, the startup must be in business for a minimum of four years, have its headquarters in North America, have fiscal year 2016 operating revenues of at least $50,000, a fiscal year 2019 operating revenues of at least $5 million USD with a growth rate of 75 percent or greater, and own proprietary intellectual property or proprietary technology which must be sold to customers in products or services that contribute to a majority of the company's operating revenues, according to the contest's rules.

Companies should also fall within one of the following industry categories: biotechnology/pharmaceutical, communications/networking, digital content/media/entertainment, electronic devices/hardware, energy tech, medical devices, semiconductor, or software/SaaS.

Lazarus 3D delivers PPE to Haiti

A few Houston innovators have helped get Haitians critical PPE. Photo courtesy of Orolait

A few Houston innovators have helped connect health care workers in Haiti to some PPE. Ana Rojas Bastidas, founder of Orolait, and Jacques and Smriti Agrawal Zaneveld of Lazarus 3D, teamed up to ship over 1,000 pieces of PPE to United States Foundation for the Children of Haiti which supported orphanages, schools, and a hospital called Hopital Espoir.

In the middle of April, Bastidas saw the organization's need for PPE and saw how Lazarus 3D was creating materials. The group in Haiti received the supplies by the beginning of June.

"I'm really proud of the collaboration between myself and the Lazarus 3D team," Bastidas says. "Smriti and Jacques are absolute gems and while our businesses are completely separate, we found a common problem we both had the resources to tackle."

CryptoEQ begins offering consulting packages

Need custom cryptocurrency support? CryptoEQ is here to help. Courtesy of CryptoEQ

A cryptocurrency startup based in Houston has expanded its service to include custom-consulting packages.

"With our personalized packages, gain the market insights you need to refine your cryptocurrency investing and trading strategies," writes Spencer Randall, co-founder and principal of CryptoEQ.

The packages come at three levels: the enthusiast, the professional, and the expert. The individualized support begins at $499, and more information can be requested from the startup by emailing team@cryptoeq.io.

This week's innovators to know in Houston all have new and exciting things to announce. Courtesy photos

3 Houston innovators to know this week

who's who

Who are Houston's innovators to know? Well this week, here's who made headlines, from a well-known Houston software entrepreneur and investor rolling out a new line of business for his company to a new podcast network with Houston roots.

Gabriella Rowe, executive director of operations at The Ion

ION Accelerator ribbon cutting event, with Mayor Sylvester Turner and business partners.

Photo by Carter Smith/Station Houston

The entrepreneurial hub dubbed the Ion that's expected to premiere in Houston's innovation district in 2021 has a new operating organization and the Rice Management Company has tapped Station Houston CEO Gabriella Rowe to run it.

"To ensure that The Ion is a catalyst for the continued growth of the innovation ecosystem, we've been collaborating with Gaby and her team as well as civic leaders, Mayor Sylvester Turner, Harris County commissioners and Midtown Houston," says Allison Thacker, president and chief investment officer of the RMC, in a news release. "We know that under Gaby's leadership The Ion will become an innovation hub for not only all Houstonians, but for anybody looking to thrive and collaborate in an entrepreneur-first, tech-forward environment." Read more.

Rakesh Agrawal, founder and CEO of SnapStream

Photo courtesy of SnapStream

Houston-based SnapStream has expanded its services, and CEO and Co-founder Rakesh Agrawal appears on the third episode of the Houston Innovators Podcast to discuss his company's growth and the role he plays in the Houston innovation ecosystem.

"A lot of people go to this question of, 'What's wrong with the Houston ecosystem?' If there's anything that's a fundamental characteristic of Houston that we need to change that would really help the startup and innovation ecosystem is that often in Houston, the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing," Agrawal says on the podcast. Read more.

Stephanie Wittels Wachs, co-founder of Lemonada Media

Photo via Twitter

It's safe to say that Stephanie Wittels Wachs didn't have start and run a podcast network in her life's master plan. Nonetheless, the Houstonian can check that box after she launched Lemonada Media with her business partner, Jessica Cordova Kramer. The network is about creating provoking, uncensored content about life and humanity.

"This is everything I've done in my whole life," she tells InnovationMap. "It sort of combines my writing and my education background and my artistic background and some voiceover background and my activism. It's everything." Read more.

Lemonada, founded by Houstonian Stephanie Wittels Wachs and Jessica Cordova Kramer, wants to air content that takes an unfiltered approach to life. Pexels

Houstonian launches her podcast network to talk about the tough stuff

unfiltered and on air

Even before Stephanie Wittels Wachs' Lemonada Media launched its first podcast on September 25, the network got a shout-out from none other than the New York Times, which listed its "Last Day" offering as one of seven new podcasts to listen to this fall.

The media company, which Wachs built with award-winning podcaster Jessica Cordova Kramer, takes aim at the human experience in all its messiness: addictions, the troubles of raising decent children, how we develop empathy. Its three shows will be distributed by The team has partnered with Westwood One on distribution, and upcoming guests include such star power as Jamie Lee Curtis, comedians Sarah Silverman, Tig Notaro, and Aziz Ansari, author Reza Aslan, actress Mara Wilson, activist DeRay McKesson, songwriter Justin Tranter and filmmaker Kulap Vilaysack.

None of it, however, is what Wachs set out to do in her life. But she knows it's exactly where life led her.

A part of that everything is her brother Harris Wittels, a creative force in his own right, known for his works on Parks and Rec, who died of a drug overdose (Wachs used her reaction to that to write Everything is Horrible and Wonderful, which not only chronicles Harris' addiction, but also how she processed her grief). He was a podcaster as well, and Wachs says this venture helps continue that legacy.

"But it's also about activism," she says. "About opioids and every other epidemic we're going through that feels so unsolvable. And that's how I roll."

Since her brother's death, Wachs has looked for ways not only to process the grief and anger she felt, but also found herself more and more drawn to finding ways to educate people and advocate for better understanding of addiction and ways to treat it. When her two young children were diagnosed with hearing disorders, she found herself advocating for having hearing aids covered by health care. So, while she may not have wanted to step into an activist role, once she found herself there, she threw herself into it with her characteristic energy and intelligence and not a little humor.

"Our goal is to make shows that help people get out of bed in the morning, that help people deal with the hardest shit in their lives," says Kramer in a press release announcing the podcast launch.

Kramer and Wachs met in 2017. Kramer had heard Wachs on another podcast, and as the two continued talking, they realized they were developing a shared mission. Lemonada takes its name from the idea of taking life's lemons and making them into lemonade – incorporating the bitter and the sweet.

To make the transition from writer and artist to media maven, Wachs drew on her already established strengths of community building and a desire to create high-quality content.

"We really wanted to bring a community flavor into the mix," she says. "And, as a women-run company, it was huge for us to have women's voices."

Houstonian Stephanie Wittels Wachs and Jessica Cordova Kramer launched Lemonada this fall. Photo via lemonadamedia.com

The result is a podcast network that brings to bear what Wachs calls incredible talent. The starting lineup includes "Last Day," which launched Sept. 25. Wachs confronts massive epidemics with humanity, wit, and a quest for progress. Starting with the opioid crisis, the show zooms in on a person's last day of life, exploring how they got there and how we, as a society, have gotten here.

Debuting on October 24, "As Me with Sinéad" explores the concept of empathy and how listening brings us closer. Academic, TED alum, and advocate Sinéad Burke leads candid conversations with diverse, notable guests who explain what it's like to be them. They challenge us to confront our biases, deepen our humanity, and feel empowered to impact and change the world around us.

And later in the year, with a debut date of November 26, comes "Good Kids: How Not to Raise an A**hole." For 15 minutes each week, a diverse set of parents, teachers, policy makers, and world shapers grab the mic and offer relevant advice, rants, and reflections. "Think of this as a quasi-manual for how to raise better humans," read the show's description in the press release.

"It feels almost non-profit in flavor," Wachs says of the endeavor. "I mean, we are a for-profit company, but it's mission driven, and that was important to both of us."

That mission, it seems, has also taken over the Wachs household. Over the summer, Wach's husband, Mike Wachs quit his job to work full-time with Lemonada, and Kramer's husband works in Lemonada's leadership, as well. That sense of family is galvanizing to Wachs, who loves that the new venture gives her time and space to watch her children grow. She's also crazy about how technology – everything from audio editing programs to conference calling to texting and FaceTime – has made Lemonada possible. Kramer took a safari as she and Wachs were planning the launch.

"I love that!" says Wachs. "We put everything on Slack and even though she was halfway around the world, it was like she was in my house."

The partnership with Westwood One gave Wachs her own tiny studio at 104 KRBE.

"It's really, truly miraculous," she says of the way the business was built. "And I know we all bring all these great gifts to the table. Mine is that I am able to talk all day," she quips."

Both she and Kramer are baking on the idea that there are a lot of people out there who feel like they do, that it's easier to survive life's challenges when you know you're not alone, who are ready to tune in and listen.

Ad Placement 300x100

Ad Placement 300x600

CultureMap Emails are Awesome

Property Showcase

Rice University researchers unveil new model that could sharpen MRI scans

MRI innovation

Researchers at Rice University, in collaboration with Oak Ridge National Laboratory, have developed a new model that could lead to sharper imaging and safer diagnostics using magnetic resonance imaging, or MRI.

In a study recently published in The Journal of Chemical Physics, the team of researchers showed how they used the Fokker-Planck equation to better understand how water molecules respond to contrast agents in a process known as “relaxation.” Previous models only approximated how water molecules relaxed around contrasting agents. However, through this new model, known as the NMR eigenmodes framework, the research team has uncovered the “full physical equations” to explain the process.

“The concept is similar to how a musical chord consists of many notes,” Thiago Pinheiro, the study’s first author, a Rice doctoral graduate in chemical and biomolecular engineering and postdoctoral researcher in the chemical sciences division at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, said in a news release. “Previous models only captured one or two notes, while ours picks up the full harmony.”

According to Rice, the findings could lead to the development and application of new contrast agents for clearer MRIs in medicine and materials science. Beyond MRIs, the NMR relaxation method could also be applied to other areas like battery design and subsurface fluid flow.

“In the present paper, we developed a comprehensive theory to interpret those previous molecular dynamics simulations and experimental findings,” Dilipkumar Asthagiri, a senior computational biomedical scientist in the National Center for Computational Sciences at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, said in the release. ”The theory, however, is general and can be used to understand NMR relaxation in liquids broadly.”

The team has also made its code available as open source to encourage its adoption and further development by the broader scientific community.

“By better modeling the physics of nuclear magnetic resonance relaxation in liquids, we gain a tool that doesn’t just predict but also explains the phenomenon,” Walter Chapman, a professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering at Rice, added in the release. “That is crucial when lives and technologies depend on accurate scientific understanding.”

The study was backed by The Ken Kennedy Institute, Rice Creative Ventures Fund, Robert A. Welch Foundation and Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility at Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

Houston-area lab grows with focus on mobile diagnostics and predictive medicine

mobile medicine

When it comes to healthcare, access can be a matter of life and death. And for patients in skilled nursing facilities, assisted living or even their own homes, the ability to get timely diagnostic testing is not just a convenience, it’s a necessity.

That’s the problem Principle Health Systems (PHS) set out to solve.

Founded in 2016 in Clear Lake, Texas, PHS began as a conventional laboratory but quickly pivoted to mobile diagnostics, offering everything from core blood work and genetic testing to advanced imaging like ultrasounds, echocardiograms, and X-rays.

“We were approached by a group in a local skilled nursing facility to provide services, and we determined pretty quickly there was a massive need in this area,” says James Dieter, founder, chairman and CEO of PHS. “Turnaround time is imperative. These facilities have an incredibly sick population, and of course, they lack mobility to get the care that they need.”

What makes PHS unique is not only what they do, but where they do it. While they operate one of the largest labs serving skilled nursing facilities in the state, their mobile teams go wherever patients are, whether that’s a nursing home, a private residence or even a correctional facility.

Diagnostics, Dieter says, are at the heart of medical decision-making.

“Seventy to 80 percent of all medical decisions are made from diagnostic results in lab and imaging,” he says. “The diagnostic drives the doctor’s or the provider’s next move. When we recognized a massive slowdown in lab results, we had to innovate to do it faster.”

Innovation at PHS isn’t just about speed; it’s about accessibility and precision.

Chris Light, COO, explains: “For stat testing, we use bedside point-of-care instruments. Our phlebotomists take those into the facilities, test at the bedside, and get results within minutes, rather than waiting days for results to come back from a core lab.”

Scaling a mobile operation across multiple states isn’t simple, but PHS has expanded into nine states, including Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Missouri and Arizona. Their model relies on licensed mobile phlebotomists, X-ray technologists and sonographers, all trained to provide high-level care outside traditional hospital settings.

The financial impact for patients is significant. Instead of ambulance rides and ER visits costing thousands, PHS services often cost just a fraction, sometimes only tens or hundreds of dollars.

“Traditionally, without mobile diagnostics, the patient would be loaded into a transportation vehicle, typically an ambulance, and taken to a hospital,” Dieter says. “Our approach is a fraction of the cost but brings care directly to the patients.”

The company has also embraced predictive and personalized medicine, offering genetic tests that guide medication decisions and laboratory tests that predict cognitive decline from conditions like Alzheimer's and Parkinson’s.

“We actively look for complementary services to improve patient outcomes,” Dieter says. “Precision medicine and predictive testing have been a great value-add for our providers.”

Looking to the future, PHS sees mobile healthcare as part of a larger trend toward home-based care.

“There’s an aging population that still lives at home with caretakers,” Dieter explains. “We go into the home every day, whether it’s an apartment, a standalone home, or assisted living. The goal is to meet patients where they are and reduce the need for hospitalization.”

Light highlighted another layer of innovation: predictive guidance.

“We host a lot of data, and labs and imaging drive most treatment decisions,” Light says. “We’re exploring how to deploy diagnostics immediately based on results, eliminating hours of delay and keeping patients healthier longer.”

Ultimately, innovation at PHS isn’t just about technology; it’s about equity.

“There’s an 11-year life expectancy gap between major metro areas and rural Texas,” Dieter says. “Our innovation has been leveling the field, so everyone has access to high-quality diagnostics and care, regardless of where they live.”

View All Listings

INNOVATIONMAP EMAILS ARE AWESOME