3 Houston innovators to know this week

who's who

This week's roundup of Houston innovators includes Kaitlyn Allen of MendIt, Miguel Calatayud of iwi, and Tatiana Fofanova of Koda Health. Courtesy photos

Editor's note: In this week's roundup of Houston innovators to know, I'm introducing you to three local innovators across industries — from sustainability to health tech — recently making headlines in Houston innovation.

Kaitlyn Allen, founder and chief strategy officer of MendIt

MendIt seeks to reduce textile waste by providing an easy-to-use app to make menders and customizers more accessible. Photo courtesy of MendIt

Kaitlyn Allen thought she had a great idea for a company — something that can help people repair clothing conveniently. And all of the pieces of the strategy already existed. There are plenty of seamstressing businesses around town, but not an easy way to navigate them. “

There’s a disconnect. There’s a market of people who potentially want to mend their clothes, but there’s no easy way of finding or accessing that service,” she says. “With this next generation, you need to meet them where they are.”

And where they are, Allen says, is on their phones.

MendIt is completing a pilot program with one mender — Connect Community in Gulfton area — in partnership with St. Luke's Gethsemane on Bellaire in Sharpstown. She also hopes to tap into a local artist who can help with customization — like embroidery, for instance. Click here to read more.

Miguel Calatayud, CEO of iwi

Miguel Calatayud, CEO of iwi, joins the Houston Innovators Podcast to discuss his sustainable business of farming algae for nutritional products. Photo courtesy of iwi

Miguel Calatayud feels like he has the perfect storm of a product. Not only does his company iwi's nutritional supplement have a sustainability focus, it's also just a very competitive product in the marketplace. The company has created a sustainable suite of products from innovative algae farming in the deserts of Texas and New Mexico. These football field-sized farms operate on desert land using just salt water and sand and produce algae sustainably — all while absorbing CO2.

"We've been growing significantly for one main reason," Calatayud says. "It works."

Calatayud shares more about the impact he's making and why Houston is the ideal market for him to do it in on the Houston Innovators podcast. Click here to read more.

Tatiana Fofanova, co-founder and CEO of Koda Health

Tatiana Fofanova, co-founder and CEO of Koda, closed recent funding for the digital health startup. Image via LinkedIn

Tatiana Fofanova, Koda co-founder and CEO, has something to celebrate. The Houston-based startup announced this month that it raised $3.5 million in its latest seed round. The funding will be used to help the digital advanced care planning company double the size of its team in the next six months.

"Koda Health helps vulnerable people navigate and communicate difficult decisions about their health care journey. So, when hiring, we look for empathetic people who are phenomenal communicators," Tatiana Fofanova, Koda co-founder and CEO, says in a statement.

The Koda team will also use the funds to expand its operations to all 50 states. According to the statement, the team plans to focus on low-resource communities and operating in different languages. Click here to read more.

Miguel Calatayud, CEO of iwi, joins the Houston Innovators Podcast to discuss his sustainable business of farming algae for nutritional products. Photo courtesy of iwi

How this Houston innovator plans to make a sustainable impact — one algae farm at a time

Houston innovators podcast episode 120

If there's one thing Miguel Calatayud is passionate about it's conscious capitalism — and specifically that his company, iwi, a Houston-based food and nutritional supplement company, is striking the perfect balance between impact and profit.

The company has created a sustainable suite of products from innovative algae farming in the deserts of Texas and New Mexico. These football field-sized farms operate on desert land using just salt water and sand and produce algae sustainably — all while absorbing CO2. Calatayud says the farms even area able to reuse 98 percent of the water involved in the process.

"In the past, you had to choose between making an impact and making a profit," Calatayud says on this week's episode of the Houston Innovators Podcast. "In our case, the way we built the company and the business model we put together, it's actually the opposite. The bigger the impact we make, the bigger the business we're creating."

With all this sustainability to boast about, Calatayud says it's not even the best part. Iwi's products, which include Omega-3 supplements, multivitamins, and even a forthcoming protein — all made from the farmed algae, are also very competitive products in the market.

"We've been growing significantly for one main reason," Calatayud says." It works."

"That's what's really driving the growth in the company because once a customer starts taking iwi, they don't go back to whatever they were taking before," Calatayud continues on the show.

Calatayud says iwi is ready to expand more internationally. The company recently closed an $8 million deal — $5.5 million in senior secured term debt and a $2.5 million direct equity investment — with GP Capital Partners, an investor and strategic partner for the company. The influx of funding will help iwi accelerate sales of its existing products and ramp up development, marketing, and growth of new protein-based product, according to the release. Iwi will also enter new international markets.

"What we are going to do with [GP] and other investors that we have is to take this brand to the next level," Calatayud says. "Last year, we grew 91 percent. This year, we are planning to grow around 200 percent."

Calatayud says the pond systems iwi operates are replicable, and as the company grows he could see building these types of algae farms across the world and even in the Middle East, creating jobs and opportunities globally.

Calatayud shares more about the impact he's making and why Houston is the ideal market for him to do it in on the podcast. Listen to the full interview below — or wherever you stream your podcasts — and subscribe for weekly episodes.


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Houston foundation grants $27M to support Texas chemistry research

fresh funding

Houston-based The Welch Foundation has doled out $27 million in its latest round of grants for chemical research, equipment and postdoctoral fellowships.

According to a June announcement, $25.5 million was allocated for the foundation's longstanding research grants, which provide $100,000 per year in funding for three years to full-time, regular tenure or tenure-track faculty members in Texas. The foundation made 85 grants to faculty at 16 Texas institutions for 2025, including:

  • Michael I. Jacobs, assistant professor in the chemistry and biochemistry department at Texas State University, who is investigating the structure and thermodynamics of intrinsically disordered proteins, which could "reveal clues about how life began," according to the foundation.
  • Kendra K. Frederick, assistant professor in the biophysics department at The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, who is studying a protein linked to Parkinson’s disease.
  • Jennifer S. Brodbelt, professor in chemistry at The University of Texas at Austin, who is testing a theory called full replica symmetry breaking (fullRSB) on glass-like materials, which has implications for complex systems in physics, chemistry and biology.

Additional funding will be allocated to the Welch Postdoctoral Fellows of the Life Sciences Research Foundation. The program provides three-year fellowships to recent PhD graduates to support clinical research careers in Texas. Two fellows from Rice University and Baylor University will receive $100,000 annually for three years.

The Welch Foundation also issued $975,000 through its equipment grant program to 13 institutions to help them develop "richer laboratory experience(s)." The universities matched funds of $352,346.

Since 1954, the Welch Foundation has contributed over $1.1 billion for Texas-nurtured advancements in chemistry through research grants, endowed chairs and other chemistry-related ventures. Last year, the foundation granted more than $40.5 million in academic research grants, equipment grants and fellowships.

“Through funding basic chemical research, we are actively investing in the future of humankind,” Adam Kuspa, president of The Welch Foundation, said the news release. “We are proud to support so many talented researchers across Texas and continue to be inspired by the important work they complete every day.”

New Houston biotech co. developing capsules for hard-to-treat tumors

biotech breakthroughs

Houston company Sentinel BioTherapeutics has made promising headway in cancer immunotherapy for patients who don’t respond positively to more traditional treatments. New biotech venture creation studio RBL LLC (pronounced “rebel”) recently debuted the company at the 2025 American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Annual Meeting in Chicago.

Rima Chakrabarti is a neurologist by training. Though she says she’s “passionate about treating the brain,” her greatest fervor currently lies in leading Sentinel as its CEO. Sentinel is RBL’s first clinical venture, and Chakrabarti also serves as cofounder and managing partner of the venture studio.

The team sees an opportunity to use cytokine interleukin-2 (IL-2) capsules to fight many solid tumors for which immunotherapy hasn't been effective in the past. “We plan to develop a pipeline of drugs that way,” Chakrabarti says.

This may all sound brand-new, but Sentinel’s research goes back years to the work of Omid Veiseh, director of the Rice Biotechnology Launch Pad (RBLP). Through another, now-defunct company called Avenge Bio, Veiseh and Paul Wotton — also with RBLP and now RBL’s CEO and chairman of Sentinel — invested close to $45 million in capital toward their promising discovery.

From preclinical data on studies in mice, Avenge was able to manufacture its platform focused on ovarian cancer treatments and test it on 14 human patients. “That's essentially opened the door to understanding the clinical efficacy of this drug as well as it's brought this to the attention of the FDA, such that now we're able to continue that conversation,” says Chakrabarti. She emphasizes the point that Avenge’s demise was not due to the science, but to the company's unsuccessful outsourcing to a Massachusetts management team.

“They hadn't analyzed a lot of the data that we got access to upon the acquisition,” explains Chakrabarti. “When we analyzed the data, we saw this dose-dependent immune activation, very specific upregulation of checkpoints on T cells. We came to understand how effective this agent could be as an immune priming agent in a way that Avenge Bio hadn't been developing this drug.”

Chakrabarti says that Sentinel’s phase II trials are coming soon. They’ll continue their previous work with ovarian cancer, but Chakrabarti says that she also believes that the IL-2 capsules will be effective in the treatment of endometrial cancer. There’s also potential for people with other cancers located in the peritoneal cavity, such as colorectal cancer, gastrointestinal cancer and even primary peritoneal carcinomatosis.

“We're delivering these capsules into the peritoneal cavity and seeing both the safety as well as the immune activation,” Chakrabarti says. “We're seeing that up-regulation of the checkpoint that I mentioned. We're seeing a strong safety signal. This drug was very well-tolerated by patients where IL-2 has always had a challenge in being a well-tolerated drug.”

When phase II will take place is up to the success of Sentinel’s fundraising push. What we do know is that it will be led by Amir Jazaeri at MD Anderson Cancer Center. Part of the goal this summer is also to create an automated cell manufacturing process and prove that Sentinel can store its product long-term.

“This isn’t just another cell therapy,” Chakrabarti says.

"Sentinel's cytokine factory platform is the breakthrough technology that we believe has the potential to define the next era of cancer treatment," adds Wotton.

How Houston's innovation sector fared in 2025 Texas legislative session

That's a Wrap

The Greater Houston Partnership is touting a number of victories during the recently concluded Texas legislative session that will or could benefit the Houston area. They range from billions of dollars for dementia research to millions of dollars for energy projects.

“These wins were only possible through deep collaboration, among our coalition partners, elected officials, business and community leaders, and the engaged members of the Partnership,” according to a partnership blog post. “Together, we’ve demonstrated how a united voice for Houston helps drive results that benefit all Texans.”

In terms of business innovation, legislators carved out $715 million for nuclear, semiconductor, and other economic development projects, and a potential $1 billion pool of tax incentives through 2029 to support research-and-development projects. The partnership said these investments “position Houston and Texas for long-term growth.”

Dementia institute

One of the biggest legislative wins cited by the Greater Houston Partnership was passage of legislation sponsored by Sen. Joan Huffman, a Houston Republican, to provide $3 billion in funding over 10 years for the Dementia Prevention and Research Institute of Texas. Voters will be asked in November to vote on a ballot initiative that would set aside $3 billion for the new institute.

The dementia institute would be structured much like the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas (CPRIT), a state agency that provides funding for cancer research in the Lone Star State. Since its founding in 2008, CPRIT has awarded nearly $3.9 billion in research grants.

“By establishing the Dementia Prevention and Research Institute of Texas, we are positioning our state to lead the charge against one of the most devastating health challenges of our time,” Huffman said. “With $3 billion in funding over the next decade, we will drive critical research, develop new strategies for prevention and treatment, and support our healthcare community. Now, it’s up to voters to ensure this initiative moves forward.”

More than 500,000 Texans suffer from some form of dementia, including Alzheimer’s disease, according to Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick.

“With a steadfast commitment, Texas has the potential to become a world leader in combating [dementia] through the search for effective treatments and, ultimately, a cure,” Patrick said.

Funding for education

In the K-12 sector, lawmakers earmarked an extra $195 million for Houston ISD, $126.7 million for Cypress-Fairbanks ISD, $103.1 million for Katy ISD, $80.6 million for Fort Bend ISD, and $61 million for Aldine ISD, the partnership said.

In higher education, legislators allocated:

     
  • $1.17 billion for the University of Houston College of Medicine, University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, UT MD Anderson Cancer Center, and Baylor College of Medicine
  • $922 million for the University of Houston System
  • $167 million for Texas Southern University
  • $10 million for the Center for Biotechnology at San Jacinto College.

Infrastructure

In the infrastructure arena, state lawmakers:

     
  • Approved $265 million for Houston-area water and flood mitigation projects, including $100 million for the Lynchburg Pump Station
  • Created the Lake Houston Dredging and Maintenance District
  • Established a fund for the Gulf Coast Protection District to supply $550 million for projects to make the coastline and ship channel more resilient

"Nuclear power renaissance"

House Bill 14 (HB 14) aims to lead a “nuclear power renaissance in the United States,” according to Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s office. HB 14 establishes the Texas Advanced Nuclear Energy Office, and allocates $350 million for nuclear development and deployment. Two nuclear power plants currently operate in Texas, generating 10 percent of the energy that feeds the Electric Reliability Council Texas (ERCOT) power grid.

“This initiative will also strengthen Texas’ nuclear manufacturing capacity, rebuild a domestic fuel cycle supply chain, and train the future nuclear workforce,” Abbott said in a news release earlier this year.

One of the beneficiaries of Texas’ nuclear push could be Washington, D.C.-based Last Energy, which plans to build 30 micro-nuclear reactors near Abilene to serve power-gobbling data centers across the state. Houston-based Pelican Energy Partners also might be able to take advantage of the legislation after raising a $450 million fund to invest in companies that supply nuclear energy services and equipment.

Reed Clay, president of the Texas Nuclear Alliance, called this legislation “the most important nuclear development program of any state.”

“It is a giant leap forward for Texas and the United States, whose nuclear program was all but dead for decades,” said Clay. “With the passage of HB 14 and associated legislation, Texas is now positioned to lead a nuclear renaissance that is rightly seen as imperative for the energy security and national security of the United States.”

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A version of this article first appeared on EnergyCapitalHTX.com.

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