Expert: How to strengthen Houston’s $555 million medtech sector

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Houston — home to the largest medical center in the world — needs access to more early stage funding for medtech companies. Photo by F. Carter Smith/courtesy of MD Anderson

Houston, an important hub for healthcare and life-science ventures, continues to see significant support for those sectors. And the city’s infrastructure around life-sciences and healthcare continues to grow. Most recently, the Texas Medical Center announced an increase in the size of its TMC Venture Fund to $50 million from $25 million. The Venture Fund was launched in 2017 to invest in Houston-area medical technology organizations and initiatives.

The city is on the leading edge when it comes to investing in digital health startups and the entrepreneurs who launch them. Nationwide, venture capital financing for medtech increased 67 percent from 2017 to 2021, with total financing approaching $20 billion, according to Deloitte’s new study, New Strategies for MedTech Startups. Financing deals for medtech organizations in Texas totaled $555 million during that time. That’s the fourth-largest total in the country, behind California, Massachusetts, and New York.

What investors are paying the most attention to are late-stage diagnostic and digital companies, according to the report. Among the hot spots for funders: AI technologies, at their highest funding level in five years; in-vitro diagnostics (IVD) and healthcare IT, both of which have dominated medtech fundraising over the last decade, raising $48 billion and $36 billion, respectively.

What could use more support are early-stage companies, the kind that get seed and series A funding. The study found that funding for them has dipped to 23 percent of total medtech VC funding in 2021 from 27 percent in 2017. Why? Yields are lower for medtech investors compared to other sectors, and reimbursement for new technologies can be difficult to achieve, meaning companies can’t get paid for their goods or services. Additionally, pandemic-induced factors, such as supply-chain issues, have also impacted funding.

Ever creative, many Houston-area early-stage entrepreneurs are looking to alternative kinds of finance, including pre-revenue IPOs and SPACs to gain entry to public markets as well as build-to-buy, where a medtech incumbent takes an ownership stake with an option to buy the company. They’re also looking to family office investment groups—family-run, generally mission-driven investors who tend to be less formal than VC funds—for financial support.

And venture capital is more than willing to invest in companies, according to the investors interviewed for the Deloitte study. Companies with strong management teams, scalable technologies that address unmet needs for a large market, technologies with low regulatory and reimbursement barriers, and products that can reduce the overall cost of healthcare will catch their attention. Bonus points for efficient, forward-looking companies, too.

Attention to these smaller firms is crucial and necessary, given that 94 percent of the 15,500-plus medtech firms in the United States are pre-revenue or have no revenue at all. Houston is home to plenty of these smaller firms with big potential. Investors would do well to look at them as long-term investments and support them by helping to lay the groundwork for regulatory and reimbursement success, in addition to investing financially.

In adopting this approach, the VC community can make significant strides towards bolstering an already strong medtech ecosystem in Houston.

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Kevin Wijayawickrama is principal at Deloitte and works on the company's risk and financial advisory team.

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Rice University's edtech company receives $90M to lead NSF research hub

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An educational technology company based out of Rice University has received $90 million to create and lead a research and development hub for inclusive learning and education research. It's the largest research award in the history of the university.

OpenStax received the grant funding from the U.S. National Science Foundation for a five-year project create the R&D hub called SafeInsights, which "will enable extensive, long-term research on the predictors of effective learning while protecting student privacy," reads a news release from Rice. It's the NSF's largest single investment commitment to national sale education R&D infrastructure.

“We are thrilled to announce an investment of $90 million in SafeInsights, marking a significant step forward in our commitment to advancing scientific research in STEM education,” NSF Director Sethuraman Panchanathan says in the release. “There is an urgent need for research-informed strategies capable of transforming educational systems, empowering our nation’s workforce and propelling discoveries in the science of learning.

"By investing in cutting-edge infrastructure and fostering collaboration among researchers and educators, we are paving the way for transformative discoveries and equitable opportunities for learners across the nation.”

SafeInsights is funded through NSF’s Mid-scale Research Infrastructure-2 (Mid-scale RI-2) program and will act as a central hub for 80 partners and collaborating institutions.

“SafeInsights represents a pivotal moment for Rice University and a testament to our nation’s commitment to educational research,” Rice President Reginald DesRoches adds. “It will accelerate student learning through studies that result in more innovative, evidence-based tools and practices.”

Richard Baraniuk, who founded OpenStax and is a Rice professor, will lead SafeInsights. He says he hopes the initiative will allow progress to be made for students learning in various contexts.

“Learning is complex," Baraniuk says in the release. "Research can tackle this complexity and help get the right tools into the hands of educators and students, but to do so, we need reliable information on how students learn. Just as progress in health care research sparked stunning advances in personalized medicine, we need similar precision in education to support all students, particularly those from underrepresented and low-income backgrounds.”

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2 Houston startups selected by US military for geothermal projects

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Two clean energy companies in Houston have been recruited for geothermal projects at U.S. military installations.

Fervo Energy is exploring the potential for a geothermal energy system at Naval Air Station Fallon in Nevada.

Meanwhile, Sage Geosystems is working on an exploratory geothermal project for the Army’s Fort Bliss post in Texas. The Bliss project is the third U.S. Department of Defense geothermal initiative in the Lone Star State.

“Energy resilience for the U.S. military is essential in an increasingly digital and electric world, and we are pleased to help the U.S. Army and [the Defense Innovation Unit] to support energy resilience at Fort Bliss,” Cindy Taff, CEO of Sage, says in a news release.

A spokeswoman for Fervo declined to comment.

Andy Sabin, director of the Navy’s Geothermal Program Office, says in a military news release that previous geothermal exploration efforts indicate the Fallon facility “is ideally suited for enhanced geothermal systems to be deployed onsite.”

As for the Fort Bliss project, Michael Jones, a project director in the Army Office of Energy Initiatives, says it’ll combine geothermal technology with innovations from the oil and gas sector.

“This initiative adds to the momentum of Texas as a leader in the ‘geothermal anywhere’ revolution, leveraging the robust oil and gas industry profile in the state,” says Ken Wisian, associate director of the Environmental Division at the U.S. Bureau of Economic Geology.

The Department of Defense kicked off its geothermal initiative in September 2023. Specifically, the Army, Navy, and Defense Innovation Unit launched four exploratory geothermal projects at three U.S. military installations.

One of the three installations is the Air Force’s Joint Base San Antonio. Canada-based geothermal company Eavor is leading the San Antonio project.

Another geothermal company, Atlanta-based Teverra, was tapped for an exploratory geothermal project at the Army’s Fort Wainwright in Alaska. Teverra maintains an office in Houston.

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This article originally ran on EnergyCapital.

Houston investor calls for all angels to move the ecosystem forward

houston innovators podcast episode 233

One of the biggest components of a well-functioning startup ecosystem is inarguably access to capital, and Mitra Miller is dedicated to enhancing education around investment and growing Houston's investor base.

As vice president and board member of the Houston Angel Network, the oldest angel network in Texas and one of the most active angel networks in the country, Miller strives to provide guidance to new and emerging angel investors as well as founders seeking to raise money from them.

"Most founders have no idea or understanding of how investors think — we are not an ATM," Miller says on the Houston Innovators Podcast. "We are really partners you are getting married to for the next 5, 8, 10 years — sometimes longer. We need to bring your allies in every sense of the word."



HAN, a nonprofit, provides a unique opportunity for its members, as Miller explains. The group consists of around 100 individuals from all business backgrounds, so evaluating companies together brings more than just a wealth of capital — but also a wealth of knowledge.

"What HAN provides is access to investments," Miller says, adding that members have the benefit in evaluating companies together with people from different backgrounds. "Inside a group like HAN, we have extraordinary expertise."

In addition to educating both founders and investors in the process, Miller has dedicated herself to providing opportunities for students in low-income parts of Houston to learn about the startup world. Eight years ago, she founded Eagle Investors, an organization that provides a year-long program that culminates in a group of students participating as judges for the Rice Business Plan Competition.

"They spend a year learning about innovation, entrepreneurship, and investing by meeting local investors, entrepreneurs, and service providers. They go around Houston to get to visit and ... experience all of the ecosystem," Miller says.

At RBPC, the cohort of high school students evaluate the pitches and select a company to provide a $5,000 prize.

Miller herself has been a judge at RBPC for 20 years now, and she's had a front row seat for watching Houston develop as an ecosystem. She's seen the city make real progress, but has one major call to action.

"The piece that I am most aware of that I would like to see grow is activating more accredited investors who are interested in this asset class of early-stage companies and plugging in," Miller says. "They can also invest their time and knowledge to help companies in our region grow and scale."

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