Annual Houston student startup competition doles out over $1.5M in cash, investment prizes

winner, winner

Thirteen of the 42 teams participating in RBPC 2024 walked away with investment funding. Photo courteys of Rice University

For the 24th year, the Rice Alliance for Technology and Entrepreneurship hosted its Rice Business Plan Competition, facilitating over $1.5 million in investment and cash prizes to the top teams.

The 42 startups competing this year, which were announced earlier this year and included teams from around the world, participated in the three-day event that culminated in a reception on Saturday, April 6. The companies were divided into five categories: Energy, Cleantech and Sustainability; Hard Tech; Life Sciences and Healthcare Solutions; Digital Enterprise; Consumer Products and Services.

“We award the competitors $1 million in prizes, prizes that serve as foundational capital to launch their startup,” RBPC Director Catherine Santamaria says at the awards gala. “That’s a large number of prizes, but the biggest thing our startups leave with is a feeling of generosity and community from this room. This community is always ready and willing to help our founders and support our vision for the competition by investing time, money and resources in these student innovators.”

While all participating teams received $950 for being selected, several teams walked away with thousands in funding, cash, and in-kind prizes. Here's which companies won big.

MesaQuantum, Harvard University — $335,000

MesaQuantum is developing accurate and precise chip-scale clocks. While not named a finalist, the company secured the most amount of funding across a few prizes:

$250,000 OWL Investment Prizes
$60,000 nCourage Courageous Women Entrepreneur Investment Prize
$25,000 Jacobs, Intuitive Machines and WRX Companies Rising Stars Space Technology and Commercial Aerospace Cash Prize

Protein Pints, Michigan State University — $251,000

The big winner of the night was Protein Pints, a high-protein, low-sugar, ice cream product from Michigan State University. Not only did the company win first place and the $150,000 GOOSE Capital Investment Grand Prize, as decided by the more than 350 judges, but it won a few other investment prizes, including:

$100,000 The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE) Texas Angels Investment Prize — Protein Pints, Michigan State University
The Eagle Investors Prize
$1,000 Anbarci Family Company Showcase Prize
Mercury Elevator Pitch Competition Prize (Best in Consumer Products)
An invitation to Entrepreneur Magazine's elevator pitch show

Osphim, RWTH Aachen University —$201,000

Osphim, a data acquisition and monitoring platform from Germany, won these prizes despite not being named a finalist:

$200,000 Goose Capital Investment Prize
$1,000 Anbarci Family Company Showcase Prize
Mercury Elevator Pitch Competition Prize (Best in Digital)

Somnair, Johns Hopkins University — $200,000

Taking second place and a $100,000 from David Anderson, Jon Finger, Anderson Family Fund, Finger Interests, Greg Novak and Tracy Druce was Somnair is a novel non-invasive neurostimulation device for the treatment of obstructive sleep apnea. The company also won:

$100,000 Houston Angel Network Investment Prize
Mercury Elevator Pitch Competition Prize (Best in Life Science)
An invitation to Texas Medical Center's Accelerator Bootcamp
An invitation to Entrepreneur Magazine's elevator pitch show

Icorium Engineering Company, University of Kansas — $171,000

Icorium Engineering Company — a chemical engineering startup developing technologies to make sustainable, circular economies a reality for refrigerants and other complex chemical mixtures — won fifth place and a $5,000 prize sponsored by Norton Rose Fulbright, EY, Chevron Technology Ventures and Shell Ventures, as well as:

$100,000 OWL Investment Prizes
$40,000 nCourage Courageous Women Entrepreneur Investment Prize
$25,000 from Finger Interests, the Anderson Family Fund at the Greater Houston Community Foundation, Greg Novak and Tracy Druce
$1,000 Anbarci Family Company Showcase Prize
Mercury Elevator Pitch Competition Prize (Best in Energy, Sustainability)
An invitation to Entrepreneur Magazine's elevator pitch show

Informuta, Tulane University — $70,000

Informuta's proprietary technology leverages DNA sequencing to predict if bacteria will respond to different antibiotics or, for the very first time, develop future resistance thus causing treatment failure. The company won fourth place and a $5,000 prize sponsored by Norton Rose Fulbright, EY, Chevron Technology Ventures and Shell Ventures.

$40,000 Pearland EDC Spirit of Entrepreneurship Cash Prize
$25,000 from Finger Interests, the Anderson Family Fund at the Greater Houston Community Foundation, Greg Novak and Tracy Druce

EndoShunt Medical, Harvard University — $55,000

EndoShunt created a rapid, targeted blood flow control device to be use in emergency or trauma settings. The company won sixth place and the $5,000 prize, sponsored by Norton Rose Fulbright, EY, Chevron Technology Ventures and Shell Ventures, as well as:

$25,000 Southwest National Pediatric Device Consortium Pediatric Device Cash Prize
$25,000 from Finger Interests, the Anderson Family Fund at the Greater Houston Community Foundation, Greg Novak and Tracy Druce

Power2Polymers, RWTH Aachen University —$50,000

Tackling the challenge of forever chemicals, Power2Polymers is creating safe alternatives free of forever chemicals. The German company took third place and the $50,000 investment sponsored by Finger Interests, the Anderson Family Fund at the Greater Houston Community Foundation, Greg Novak and Tracy Druce. The company also won the Mercury Elevator Pitch Competition Prize (Best Overall).

D.Sole, Carnegie Mellon University — $30,000

D. Sole won the wild card ticket to the finals and took seventh place. The company is advancing the development of remote patient monitoring in podiatry with foot insoles designed for the early detection and monitoring of diabetic foot complications, such as ulcers and deformities. They also won $30,000 from Finger Interests, the Anderson Family Fund at the Greater Houston Community Foundation, Greg Novak and Tracy Druce.

Other prizes:

$25,000 New Climate Ventures Sustainable Investment Prize went to Oxylus Energy from Yale University
$25,000 Dream Big Ventures Latino Entrepreneur Investment Prize went to Dendritic Health AI from Northwestern University
$25,000 NOV Energy Technology Innovation Cash Prize went to LiQuidium from the University of Houston
$25,000 Urban Capital Network Diversity Investment Prize in Partnership with South Loop Venture Investment Prize went to TouchStone from University of California, Berkeley

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Cancer diagnostics startup wins top prize at annual Rice competition

winner, winners

Rice University student-founded companies took home a total of $115,000 in equity-free funding at the annual Liu Idea Lab for Innovation and Entrepreneurship's H. Albert Napier Rice Launch Challenge last week.

2025 Rice Innovation Fellow Alexandria Carter won the top prize and $50,000 for her startup Bionostic. The startup offers personalized diagnostics for cancer patients by using 3D culturing through its Advanced Tumor Landscape Analysis System (ATLAS) platform.

Carter is working toward her PhD in bioengineering in Professor Michael King's laboratory. She recently completed the Rice Innovation Fellows program and plans to commercialize ATLAS, according to a news release from Rice.

Actile Technologies, founded by another former Rice Innovation Fellow, Barclay Jumet, won second place and $25,000. The company is developing and commercializing textile-integrated technologies. InnovationMap first covered Jumet's wearable technology back in 2023.

Kairos took home the third-place prize and $15,000, plus the $2,000 audience choice award and the $5,000 undergraduate business award. Founded last year by Sanjana Kavula and Adhira Tippur, Kairos is an AI-powered patient intake platform built specifically for independent dental practices.

The NRLC features top startups founded by undergraduate, graduate and MBA students at Rice each year. The top three finishers were named among a group of five finalists earlier this year, which also included HAAST Autonomous and Project Kestrel.

HAAST is developing an unmanned aircraft for organ transport, while Kestrel uses machine learning to organize bird photographers’ photo collections.

Teams presented multiple five-minute pitches throughout the application process over Zoom and in-person before the five finalists presented at the NRLC Championships April 21 at the Rice Memorial Center. Each finalist walked away with an equity-free investment.

Other awards went to:

UnitCode

$5,000 MBA Venture Award

HAAST Autonomous

$2,500 Chan-Kang Family Prize for Bold Ambition
$1,000 Healthcare Innovations Prize

Telstar Networks

$2,500 Outstanding Undergraduate Startup Award

Multiplay

$1,500 Frank Liu Jr. Prize for Creative Innovation in Music, Fashion, & the Arts

Butterfly Books

$1,500 Social Impact Award

SOOZ

$1,000 Interdisciplinary Innovation Prize sponsored by OURI

Dooly

$1,000 Consumer Goods Prize

Project Kestrel

$1,000 AI Prize

Veloci Running won the NRLC last year for its naturally shaped running shoe. Founder and CEO Tyler Strothman recently told InnovationMap that the company has gone on to sell roughly 10,000 pairs of its flagship Ascent shoe, designed to relieve lower leg tightness and absorb impact. Read more here.

Houston-based, NASA-founded cleantech startup closes $12M seed round

Fresh Funds

Houston-based Helix Earth Technologies has closed a $12 million Seed 2 funding round to scale manufacturing of its energy-efficient commercial HVAC add-on technology.

Veriten, a Houston-based energy investment firm, led the round. Rua Ventures, Carnrite Ventures, Skywriter LLC and Textbook Ventures also participated.

Helix Earth—which was founded based on NASA technology, spun out of Rice University and has been incubated at Greentown Labs—is developing high-efficiency retrofit dehumidification systems that aim to reduce the energy consumption of commercial HVAC units. The company reports that its technology can lead to "healthier indoor air, lower energy bills, reduced building maintenance, and more comfortable spaces for building owners and occupants."

"Building owners are dealing with rising energy costs, uncontrolled humidity, and aging infrastructure with no viable, cost-effective path forward. We are in the field today solving these problems for commercial customers, and this capital puts us on an aggressive path to scale,” Rawand Rasheed, Helix Earth co-founder and CEO, said in a news release.

“The strength of this round reinforces our team's conviction that we can transform innovation-starved sectors with transformational solutions that deliver order-of-magnitude improvements to owners and operators, for both their bottom line and the environment,” Rasheed added.

Maynard Holt, Veriten’s founder and CEO, said that the investment firm is tripling its investment in Helix Earth.

"The team has built breakthrough technology with real applicability across multiple industries,” Holt said in the release. “Their first product will have an immediate and measurable impact on our energy system, and they are already pursuing adjacent innovations to help heavy industries operate more efficiently and with less waste. This is a well-rounded team with a proven track record of strong execution and disciplined capital management.”

Helix Earth also closed a $5.6 million seed funding round in 2024, led by Veriten.

Last year, the company secured a $1.2 million Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II grant and won in the Smart Cities, Transportation & Sustainability contest at the 2025 SXSW Pitch Showcase. Rasheed was also named to the Forbes 30 Under 30 Energy and Green Tech list for 2025.

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This article originally appeared on EnergyCapital HTX.com.

Texas earns 22nd 'best state for business' title as GDP hits $2.9T

booming economy

The Texas business sector recently received a double dose of good news.

For the 22nd consecutive year, Chief Executive magazine named Texas the best state for business. In tandem with that achievement, preliminary new estimates from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis show the size of Texas’ economy jumped to $2.9 trillion in 2025, up by a nation-leading growth rate of 2.5 percent compared with the previous year.

Speaking about the Chief Executive honor, Gov. Greg Abbott says Texas benefits from pro-growth policies, a strong workforce, strategic investments in education, training for high-demand skills and the presence of critical infrastructure.

“Texas is where businesses innovate and where opportunity abounds. … We will continue to move at the speed of business as we build a more prosperous Texas for generations to come,” the governor says.

An annual Chief Executive survey of CEOs, presidents and business owners determines which state is the best for business. Texas has landed at No. 1 every year since Chief Executive launched the ranking.

“Truly, this is an incredible run that Texas has going,” says Christopher Chalk, publisher of Chief Executive. “CEOs are a tough group to please, and yet year after year Texas continues to earn the top spot—no small feat.”

It’s also no small feat for a state to notch annual gains in its gross domestic product (GDP), a measurement of economic power based on the value of goods and services produced each year.

With an estimated GDP of $2.9 trillion last year, Texas maintains its position as the eighth-largest global economy compared with the nations of the world, based on preliminary estimates from the International Monetary Fund.

In reference to Texas’ GDP growth, Abbott says the Lone Star State is “the premier destination for job creators from across the country and world. We will keep attracting world-class investment, create jobs, and expand opportunity for Texans for generations to come.”

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