3 Houston tech innovators to know this week

Who's who

Tech startups are popping up across industries from real estate to oil and gas, and these three founders are among the leaders in technology. Courtesy images

Often, technology and innovation are mistaken for each other. While not mutually exclusive, both tech and innovation work well together in Houston across all industries — from oil and gas to real estate and social media. These three founders engaged technology for their individual startups.

Srini Katta, founder and CEO of Social Chains

Courtesy of Social Chains

As a social media user, your data is already out there and being used for marketing purposes. But, rather than the Facebooks or Googles of the world making a profit, Srini Katta wanted to create a platform where users made a profit off their own data.

"On our platform, the user is a stakeholder. Our platform distributes 50 percent of the profits to the users," he says.

Social Chains already has 5,000 users and, Katta says, that's with little to no marketing efforts, which Katta is about to launch.

Martin Kay, founder and CEO of Entera Technology

Courtesy of Entera

Martin Kay, who splits his time between Houston and the Bay Area for his startup Entera Technologies, knew there had to be a better way for people searching for a home to buy. He drew a comparison between homebuyers and Netflix viewers to create Entera's software.

"We're a little bit like Netflix," he says. "They go out and get content from everyone, and they begin to watch your behavior. So, Netflix has 2,000 profiles and you probably fit five or six of those. We have almost 100 profiles and what we do is say, we're going to understand what you want, watch your behavior and instead of giving you 40,000 properties on a big map, we actually match you based on your preferences, to the five or six houses that are best for you."

Houston-based Entera has grown as the platform loads more and more data for its users to engage with.

Luther Birdzell, CEO and founder of OAG Analytics

Courtesy of OAG Analytics

Luther Birdzell always knew he wanted to run his own company, but the software and analytics professional worked in various industries before realizing that oil and gas had a huge opportunity for savings using analytics. He founded OAG Analytics in 2013 to help provide a solution for these companies.

"When I founded OAG Analytics, our mission then — and still is today — was to build a platform for the upstream oil and gas industry that enables them to manage their data, introduces world-class machine learning in minutes without having to write a single line of code, and allow them to run simulations on the resulting analysis," Birdzell says.

The company has grown to 25 employees and tripled its revenue last year. The team is forecasting another year of high grow for 2019.


This Houston company has the key to a more exact searching process when it comes to finding a new home to buy. Courtesy photo

Tech company uses machine learning to buy homes in Houston

game changer

For most consumers, the home buying process includes a very specific online search. People specify their neighborhood requirements, the number of bedrooms or bathrooms, backyard size, and more — yet still, the search results in a staggering amount of homes. It's way more than anyone can reasonably look at.

That's where Martin Kay and Entera Technology, the company he founded and is CEO of, come in. Kay, a 20-year veteran of the tech sector, who's bought multiple homes as rental properties, realized the way to solve the problem of that kind of search engine overload was through machine learning. He now works with some of the largest home-buying companies in the world, helping them find properties that match the specifications they have to attract the clients they want.

"All residential real estate is a consumer product," he says. "Ultimately, the people who are going to live in that home care most about, is it a nice home with a big backyard neat good schools, is it safe? The [home buying] companies are trying to figure out what do the end consumers really care about so we can give them exactly what they need?"

To do so, Entera collects data — lots and lots of it. Kay and his team have taught their software programs what a chef's kitchen is, for example. They did so by compiling tens of thousands of photos of kitchens and telling the software, "This is a kitchen." Then, they taught it to recognize what makes a chef's kitchen — a larger size, more than one sink, high-end appliances. They used the same techniques in identifying things like millennial-friendly neighborhoods or neighborhoods that were up-and-coming on the real estate scene. They draw from listings available with the Houston Association of Realtors and beyond, a vast array of tens of thousands of homes.

Officially launched in 2017, Entera blends its data collection and analysis with on-the-ground service. After Entera's proprietary software collects what it thinks home-buying companies want, members of Entera's service team go out to look at the homes.

"We're a little bit like Netflix," he says. "They go out and get content from everyone, and they begin to watch your behavior. So, Netflix has 2,000 profiles and you probably fit five or six of those. We have almost 100 profiles and what we do is say, we're going to understand what you want, watch your behavior and instead of giving you 40,000 properties on a big map, we actually match you based on your preferences, to the five or six houses that are best for you."

While Entera has been working with larger home-buying companies — like firms that buy tens of thousands of homes every year — Kay says they have begun working with smaller entities, and he figures within the next few years, Entera will be using the same data collection and machine learning to work with individual home buyers.

Based in Houston, Entera has operations in New York and San Francisco as well. The company has 17 full-time employees, along with approximately 100 contractors in its markets. And while Kay understand a human touch is needed in business, he loves that he can use a data model to present unbiased opinions to his clients.

"[Real estate] actually affects people's lives meaningfully," Kay says. "Real estate data — where you live, what your neighborhood is, how you make that choice — …this data matters to people in a way they can tangibly touch and understand and feel. We can help people make what are big, complex choices that are often highly ambiguous. I love it because it matters. You can measure how it matters immediately."

Data-driven tech

Courtesy of Entera

Entera focuses on collecting data and analysis and pairs it with on-the-ground service. After Entera's proprietary software collects what it thinks home-buying companies want, members of Entera's service team go out to look at the homes.

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How Houston innovators played a role in the historic Artemis II splashdown

safe landing

Research from Rice University played a critical role in the safe return of U.S. astronauts aboard NASA’s Artemis II mission this month.

Rice mechanical engineer Tayfun E. Tezduyar and longtime collaborator Kenji Takizawa developed a key computational parachute fluid-structure interaction (FSI) analysis system that proved vital in NASA’s Orion capsule’s descent into the Pacific Ocean. The FSI system, originally developed in 2013 alongside NASA Johnson Space Center, was critical in Orion’s three-parachute design, which slowed the capsule as it returned to Earth, according to Rice.

The model helped ensure that the parachute design was large enough to slow the capsule for a safe landing while also being stable enough to prevent the capsule from oscillating as it descended.

“You cannot separate the aerodynamics from the structural dynamics,” Tezduyar said in a news release. “They influence each other continuously and even more so for large spacecraft parachutes, so the analysis must capture that interaction in a robustly coupled way.”

The end result was a final parachute system, refined through NASA drop tests and Rice’s computational FSI analysis, that eliminated fluctuations and produced a stable descent profile.

Apart from the dynamic challenges in design, modeling Orion’s parachutes also required solving complex equations that considered airflow and fabric deformation and accounted for features like ringsail canopy construction and aerodynamic interactions among multiple parachutes in a cluster.

“Essentially, my entire group was dedicated to that work, because I considered it a national priority,” Tezduyar added in the release. “Kenji and I were personally involved in every computer simulation. Some of the best graduate students and research associates I met in my career worked on the project, creating unique, first-of-its-kind parachute computer simulations, one after the other.”

Current Intuitive Machines engineer Mario Romero also worked on Orion during his time at NASA. From 2018 to 2021, Romero was a member of the Orion Crew Capsule Recovery Team, which focused on creating likely scenarios that crewmembers could encounter in Orion.

The team trained in NASA’s 6.2-million-gallon pool, using wave machines to replicate a range of sea conditions. They also simulated worst-case scenarios by cutting the lights, blasting high-powered fans and tipping a mock capsule to mimic distress situations. In some drills, mock crew members were treated as “injured,” requiring the team to practice safe, controlled egress procedures.

“It’s hard to find the appropriate descriptors that can fully encapsulate the feeling of getting to witness all the work we, and everyone else, did being put into action,” Romero tells InnovationMap. “I loved seeing the reactions of everyone, but especially of the Houston communities—that brought me a real sense of gratitude and joy.”

Intuitive Machines was also selected to support the Artemis II mission using its Space Data Network and ground station infrastructure. The company monitored radio signals sent from the Orion spacecraft and used Doppler measurements to help determine the spacecraft's precise position and speed.

Tim Crain, Chief Technology Officer at Intuitive Machines, wrote about the experience last week.

"I specialized in orbital mechanics and deep space navigation in graduate school,” Crain shared. “But seeing the theory behind tracking spacecraft come to life as they thread through planetary gravity fields on ultra-precise trajectories still seems like magic."

Rice Alliance names first head of platform & more innovation headlines

Trending News

Editor's note: The top April innovation headlines to know include Rice Alliance's newly minted head of platform and FDA approval for a local medtech startup. Below are the five most-read InnovationMap stories from April 1-15, 2026:

1. Rice Alliance names Houston healthtech exec as first head of platform

The Rice Alliance for Technology and Entrepreneurship has named its first head of platform. Houston entrepreneur Laura Neder stepped into the newly created role last month, according to an email from Rice Alliance. Neder will focus on building and growing Houston’s Venture Advantage Platform. The emerging platform, which is being promoted by Rice Alliance and the Ion, aims to connect founders with the "people, capital and expertise they need to scale." Continue reading.

2. Houston medtech startup clears FDA approval for new surgical tool

Prana Surgical has developed a minimally invasive, image-guided, single-use tissue extraction tool. Photo via LinkedIn

Houston-based Prana Surgical will soon bring a new electrosurgical tool to operating rooms around the country. The Prana System officially cleared U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval earlier this month. Prana Surgical began as Prana Thoracic in 2022. Back then, the company primarily focused on developing screening tools for lung cancer diagnosis. It raised $6 million in series A funding rounds in 2023 and 2024 before transitioning to broader surgical needs in 2025. Continue reading.

3. Houston leads U.S. in population growth for 2025, Census says

The 10-county Houston metro added 126,720 residents from July 1, 2024, to July 1, 2025. Photo via Getty Images

Imagine that the Houston metro area swallowed a city the size of Pearland in just one year. That’s essentially what happened from 2024 to 2025, with the Houston metro ranking first in the U.S. for population growth based on the number of people. New estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau show the 10-county Houston metro added 126,720 residents from July 1, 2024, to July 1, 2025. That’s just shy of Pearland’s roughly 133,000-resident tally. Continue reading.

4. 8+ can't-miss Houston business and innovation events in April


From the Rice Business Plan Competition to the Veterans Business Battle, here's what not to miss in April and how to register. Photo courtesy the Ion

Houston's weeklong innovation festival kicked off April, followed by Rice University's globally recognized pitch competition returning for its 26th year. Plus, find coworking pop-ups, industry meetups, pitch battles and even a crawfish boil on the calendar. Continue reading.

5. Houston unicorn closes $421M to fuel first phase of flagship energy project

Tim Latimer, CEO and co-founder of Fervo Energy. Photo courtesy of Fervo Energy

Houston geothermal unicorn Fervo Energy has closed $421 million in non-recourse debt financing for the first phase of its flagship Cape Station project in Beaver County, Utah. Fervo believes Cape Station can meet the needs of surging power demand from data centers, domestic manufacturing and an energy market aiming to use clean and reliable power. According to the company, Cape Station will begin delivering its first power to the grid this year and is expected to reach approximately 100 megwatts of operating capacity by early 2027. Fervo added that it plans to scale to 500 megawatts. Continue reading.

UH breakthrough moves superconductivity closer to real-world use

Energy Breakthrough

University of Houston researchers have set a new benchmark in the field of superconductivity.

Researchers from the UH physics department and the Texas Center for Superconductivity (TcSUH) have broken the transition temperature record for superconductivity at ambient pressure. The accomplishment could lead to more efficient ways to generate, transmit and store energy, which researchers believe could improve power grids, medical technologies and energy systems by enabling electricity to flow without resistance, according to a release from UH.

To break the record, UH researchers achieved a transition temperature 151 Kelvin, which is the highest ever recorded at ambient pressure since the discovery of superconductivity in 1911.

The transition temperature represents the point just before a material becomes superconducting, where electricity can flow through it without resistance. Scientists have been working for decades to push transition temperature closer to room temperature, which would make superconducting technologies more practical and affordable.

Currently, most superconductors must be cooled to extremely low temperatures, making them more expensive and difficult to operate.

UH physicists Ching-Wu Chu and Liangzi Deng published the research in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences earlier this month. It was funded by Intellectual Ventures and the state of Texas via TcSUH and other foundations. Chu, founding director and chief scientist at TcSUH, previously made the breakthrough discovery that the material YBCO reaches superconductivity at minus 93 K in 1987. This helped begin a global competition to develop high-temperature superconductors.

“Transmitting electricity in the grid loses about 8% of the electricity,” Chu, who’s also a professor of physics at UH and the paper’s senior author, said in a news release. “If we conserve that energy, that’s billions of dollars of savings and it also saves us lots of effort and reduces environmental impacts.”

Chu and his team used a technique known as pressure quenching, which has been adapted from techniques used to create diamonds. With pressure quenching, researchers first apply intense pressure to the material to enhance its superconducting properties and raise its transition temperature.

Next, researchers are targeting ambient-pressure, room-temperature superconductivity of around 300 K. In a companion PNAS paper, Chu and Deng point to pressure quenching as a promising approach to help bridge the gap between current results and that goal.

“Room-temperature superconductivity has been seen as a ‘holy grail’ by scientists for over a century,” Rohit Prasankumar, director of superconductivity research at Intellectual Ventures, said in the release. “The UH team’s result shows that this goal is closer than ever before. However, the distance between the new record set in this study and room temperature is still about 140 C. Closing this gap will require concerted, intentional efforts by the broader scientific community, including materials scientists, chemists, and engineers, as well as physicists.”

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This article originally appeared on EnergyCapitalHTX.com.

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