12 Texas entrepreneurs rank among Forbes' richest self-made women for 2023

ELITE ENTREPRENEURS

Thai Lee, of Austin, remains at the top of the list in Texas. Photo courtesy of SHI

Of the country's 100 most successful female entrepreneurs, 12 call Texas home, according to Forbes and its 2023 list of America's Richest Self-Made Women, released June 1.

"Bolstered in part by a rebound in the stock market, [the richest 100 female entrepreneurs] are cumulatively worth a record $124 billion, up nearly 12 percent from a year ago," says Forbes.

To make the Forbes list, women had to garner wealth on their own, rather than by inheriting or winning it. Texas' wealthiest women have made their fortunes in fields ranging from home health care, insurance, and aviation logistics to jewelry design, dating apps, and running the show at SpaceX. Austin is home to the largest concentration of these self-made Texans with eight Austinites making the list.

With an estimated net worth at $4.8 billion, Thai Lee, of Austin, remains at the top of the list in Texas, and ranks No. 5 nationally.

She falls behind only No. 1 Diane Hendricks of Wisconsin (co-founder of ABC Supply, $15 billion net worth); No. 2 Judy Loveof Oklahoma (chairman and CEO, Love's Travel Stops And Country Stores, $10.2 billion); No. 3 Judy Faulkner of Wisconsin (founder and CEO, Epic Systems, $7.4 billion); and No. 4 Lynda Resnick of California (co-founder and co-owner of Wonderful Company, $5.3 billion) among America's richest self-made women.

For some additional perspective, Oprah Winfrey lands at No. 13 on the list for 2023. The TV titan (and most famous woman on the planet) has an estimated net worth of $2.5 billion, Forbes says.

Austin's Lee, a native of Bangkok who holds an MBA from Harvard University, is founder, president, and CEO of SHI International Corp., a provider of IT products and services with a projected revenue of $14 billion in 2023. Fun fact: "Lee majored in both biology and economics," Forbes says, "in part because her English was less than perfect and she wanted to avoid writing and speaking in class."

The other seven Austin women on the list are:

  • Lisa Su, No. 34, Austin. Forbes pegs Su’s net worth at $740 million, tying her with April Anthony of Dallas. The native of Taiwan is president and CEO of Santa Clara, California-based semiconductor company Advanced Micro Devices.
  • Kendra Scott, No. 47, of Austin.Forbes says she has amassed a net worth of $550 million as founder of Kendra Scott LLC, which designs and sells jewelry in more than 100 stores (and is worth $360 million). The celebrity entrepreneur is also a judge on TV's Shark Tank.
  • Whitney Wolfe Herd, No. 52, of Austin. She is worth an estimated $510 million. Herd is co-founder and CEO of Bumble Inc., which operates two online dating apps: Bumble and Badoo. She owns a 17% stake in Bumble and became the youngest self-made woman billionaire after it went public in February 2021.
  • Paige Mycoskie, No. 73, of Austin. She is worth an estimated $380 million. Mycoskie created founded her 1970s-inspired California lifestyle brand, Aviator Nation, which took off during the pandemic and now has 16 retail locations across the U.S. If the name sounds familiar, that's because she's the sister of TOMS founder Blake Mycoskie, with whom she competed on TV's The Amazing Race.
  • Imam Abuzeid, No. 77, of Austin. Her net worth is estimated at $350 million. Abuzeid is the co-founder and CEO of Incredible Health, which she started in 2017 to help alleviate America's nursing shortage. Forbes describes it as "a souped-up version of LinkedIn for nurses." Abuzeid is one of only a handful of Black female founders to run a company valued at more than $1 billion, Forbes notes.
  • Julia Cheek, No. 92, of Austin. Her net worth is estimated at $260 million. Cheek founded at-home testing company Everly Health in 2015 "out of frustration at having to pay thousands for lab testing to diagnose issues related to vitamin imbalance," Forbes says. It got a Shark Tank deal with Lori Greiner and is now worth roughly $1.8 billion.
  • Belinda Johnson, No. 96, of Austin. She is worth an estimated $250 million. Johnson was Airbnb's first chief operating officer and led many of its legal disputes. She stepped down from that role in March 2020, Forbes says, and left the company's board in June 2023.

The remaining Texas women on the list include:

  • Gwynne Shotwell, No. 27, of Jonesboro (Coryell-Hamilton counties). Her net worth is estimated at $860 million. Shotwell is president and COO of Elon Musk's SpaceX. She manages the operations of the commercial space exploration company and owns an estimated stake of 1 percent, Forbes says.
  • Robyn Jones, No. 29, of Fort Worth. Her net worth is estimated at $830 million. Jones is founder of Westlake-based Goosehead Insurance Agency LLC. She started the property and casualty insurance agency in 2003 after being frustrated with her truck-driver husband's "road warrior lifestyle," Forbes says. He joined her in 2004 and they took the company public in 2018. It has nearly 1,000 franchised offices.
  • April Anthony, No. 34, of Dallas. Forbes puts her net worth at $740 million. She founded the Dallas-based home health and hospice division of Encompass Health Corp and sold it for $750 million to HealthSouth. In 2022, she was named CEO of VitalCaring, a home health and hospice care firm.
  • Kathleen Hildreth, No. 44, of Aubrey. Her net worth is estimated at $590 million. Hildreth is co-founder of M1 Support Services LP, an aviation logistics company based in Denton. A service-disabled Army veteran, she graduated from West Point in 1983 and was deployed all around the world as a helicopter pilot.
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This article originally ran on CultureMap.

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Houston cell therapy company launches second-phase clinical trial

fighting cancer

A Houston cell therapy company has dosed its first patient in a Phase 2 clinical trial. March Biosciences is testing the efficacy of MB-105, a CD5-targeted CAR-T cell therapy for patients with relapsed or refractory CD5-positive T-cell lymphoma.

Last year, InnovationMap reported that March Biosciences had closed its series A with a $28.4 million raise. Now, the company, co-founded by Sarah Hein, Max Mamonkin and Malcolm Brenner, is ready to enroll a total of 46 patients in its study of people with difficult-to-treat cancer.

The trial will be conducted at cancer centers around the United States, but the first dose took place locally, at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. Dr. Swaminathan P. Iyer, a professor in the department of lymphoma/myeloma at MD Anderson, is leading the trial.

“This represents a significant milestone in advancing MB-105 as a potential treatment option for patients with T-cell lymphoma who currently face extremely limited therapeutic choices,” Hein, who serves as CEO, says. “CAR-T therapies have revolutionized the treatment of B-cell lymphomas and leukemias but have not successfully addressed the rarer T-cell lymphomas and leukemias. We are optimistic that this larger trial will further validate MB-105's potential to address the critical unmet needs of these patients and look forward to reporting our first clinical readouts.”

The Phase 1 trial showed promise for MB-105 in terms of both safety and efficacy. That means that potentially concerning side effects, including neurological events and cytokine release above grade 3, were not observed. Those results were published last year, noting lasting remissions.

In January 2025, MB-105 won an orphan drug designation from the FDA. That results in seven years of market exclusivity if the drug is approved, as well as development incentives along the way.

The trial is enrolling its single-arm, two-stage study on ClinicalTrials.gov. For patients with stubborn blood cancers, the drug is providing new hope.

Texas-based 'DoorDash for laundry' startup tumbles into Houston market

No Scrubs

Laundry may seem like an endless task that piles up, but a new service offers a solution to overwhelmed Houston families.

NoScrubs, an Austin-based home laundry pickup service has just expanded to Houston. Described by the company as "DoorDash — but for laundry," they wash customer's clothes at local laundromats and return them the same day, folded and ready to be put away.

The service took off like gangbusters in Austin, making an expansion to the state's largest city an obvious choice. It's not universal coverage just yet.

For now, only the following ZIP codes have NoScrubs service available: 77002, 77004, 77005, 77006, 77007, 77008, 77009, 77010, 77018, 77019, 77024, 77025, 77027, 77046, 77056, 77057, 77081, 77098, 77401, 77030, 77003.

A single pickup starts at $40 for 20 pounds of laundry, while the basic monthly subscription is $60 for two pickups. All services use hypoallergenic detergents.

The average American family spends about 240 hours a year on laundry, making it a very time-consuming chore. For people with disabilities, difficult work schedules, and other circumstances, it can be a real help, says co-founder Matt O'Connor.

"Some of our favorite customer stories simply revolve around saving people time when they have something challenging going on," he writes in an email. "For example, one customer reviewed NoScrubs saying 'So happy I could cry! (Partially because I'm pregnant and my emotions are heightened!)...1000% recommend if you have time restrictions or physical restrictions! ' So, whether it’s saving time, the affordability, or the pleasantly surprising turnaround time, NoScrubs has a variety of benefits for any customer."

NoScrubs is also a new opportunity for Houston's gig workers. Because there are no passengers, it can be a safer alternative to driving ride share for women and other people apprehensive about having strangers in their cars. As NoScrubs partners with local laundromats, drivers are also going to centralized locations rather than all over the map, leading to less wear and tear on their cars. The laundromats benefit as well, since NoScrubs loads are ones that would otherwise be done at home.

"Our model makes driving a tiny fraction of the time, so folks who don’t want to wear down their vehicles and spend a ton on gas love working at NoScrubs," added O'Connor.

Here's what's next for Houston’s Tempest Droneworx after SXSW Speed Pitch win

winner, winner

It’s not easy to be a standout at South by Southwest, especially during SXSW Interactive, which is the subsection of the festival that focuses on new media, technology and entrepreneurship.

But it’s even more difficult to win at SXSW Pitch, the competition for startups and entrepreneurs that showcases innovative new technology to a panel of industry experts, high-profile media professionals, venture capital investor, and angel investors.

Tempest Droneworx, a Houston-based company that provides real-time intelligence collected through drones, robots and sensors, did just that last month, taking home the Best Speed Pitch award. It was also named a finalist and alternate in the full SXSW Pitch competition. The company is known for it flagship product, Harbinger, a software solution that agnostically gathers data at virtually any scale and presents that data in easy-to-understand visualizations using a video game engine.

Tempest CEO and founder Ty Audronis says his company won based on its merits and the impact it’s making and will make on the world. Audronis founded the company after his hometown of Paradise, California, was destroyed by a wildfire in 2018.

“(SXSW) was a huge moment for our team,” says Audronis, whose background is in science visualization, data visualization and visual effects for the movie industry. “This is about what everyone at Tempest Droneworx has created, and our mission to make sure that issues—like the one that befell Paradise, California, my hometown, and the inspiration for our Harbinger software—don’t become the full-blown (disasters)."

Audronis shares that the company is working to release an agriculture beta this summer and is raising a Tactical Funding Increase (TACFI) round through the AFWERX, the Department of the Air Force’s innovation arm.

Tempest’s Harbinger is impressing investors and clients alike, but what is it exactly and what does it do?

The best way to explain the solution is in how it’s redefining the agriculture space. Tempest has deployed the product at Grand Farm in North Dakota, an agtech operation that seeks to promote sustainable, climate-resilient farming using applied technology.

“We decided to go down the road of agriculture,” Audronis says. “We're currently installed at the Grand Farm in North Dakota, which is a farm that is very closely tied to Microsoft. They do third-party verification of new soils and fertilizers, and we are helping them with visualizing the data that they're getting from their sensors.”

Additionally, Audronis and his co-founder and wife, Dana Abramovitz, spearhead a pilot program at Doubting Thomas Farms, an organic farm in Minnesota, where the company has installed 22 in-ground sensors that can measure volatile organic emissions.

To further optimize their solutions approach, Tempest Droneworx will also train artificial intelligence to look for overspray from neighboring non-organic farms. This will help maintain organic certification and reduce insurance claims for lost crops.

“This will save Doubting Thomas Farms and other organic farms a boatload of cash,” Audronis says.

During an exclusive tour with InnovationMap, Audronis pulled up a live feed of sensors buried around the Minnesota farm up on the conference room display. The feed did, in fact, look like a video game, with the sensors giving real-time data about the farm’s temperature, moisture level, humidity, CO2 and nitrogen.

Harbinger will collect, extract and extrapolate all of the data and later provide a digital almanac for farmers to track the history of their crops.

As the office tour continued, Audronis pointed out the company’s expanding partnership with the U.S. Military.

As a retired U.S. Navy veteran with over two decades of experience designing, building and piloting drones, Audronis understands that Harbinger has multiple military applications that will ultimately save lives—a core tenet of his company’s mission.

The company has launched a robotic dog known as UBU, developed by Tempest partner Ghost Robotics, that enables faster, more accurate ground surveys for explosive devices. This task previously required multiple airmen and hours to complete, Audronis says.

With agriculture and military initiatives in progress and making an impact, Audronis hopes to one day bring his original vision for Tempest Droneworx and Harbinger full circle by getting the call to combat California’s next catastrophic wildfire.

“We're proving our technology in military and in agriculture right now,” Audronis says. “Eventually, I would like to still save some lives with wildfire. That's really the purpose of the company … Whether it's agriculture, smart cities, the bottom line is saving lives through real-time situational awareness."

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