Houston startup names new exec, innovators join prestigious program, and more news

short stories

Here's your latest roundup of Houston innovation news you may have missed. Photo by Tim Leviston/Getty Images

Houston's cooling down, but the city's innovation news is heating up, and there might be some headlines you may have missed.

In this roundup of short stories within Houston startups and tech, a Houston startup has a new C-level exec, two innovators join a international cohort of leaders, and more.

NanoTech names new chief commercial officer

Carrie Horazeck is now the chief commercial officer for NanoTech. Photo courtesy of NanoTech

Houston-based materials science company NanoTech Inc. has appointed Carrie Horazeck as chief commercial officer for the startup, which created a fireproofing and carbon reduction through cool roof coatings. In her new role, Horazeck will lead marketing and sales strategy for the growing company.

“I’ve been a fan of NanoTech since I first met co-founder and CEO Mike Francis at a Halliburton Labs event last year," Horazeck says in a statement. “It’s an incredible team, with an incredible product. They are on the precipice of major growth and I’m very honored to be a part of that journey.”

Prior to NanoTech, Horazeck spent 11 years in management consulting helping to grow her clients' businesses, staying tuned into consumer trends and behaviors to guide product development and intelligent marketing strategy. She's worked with a wide range of industries and clients including Samsung, General Mills, Newell Brands, Coca-Cola, Unilever, American Express, British American Tobacco, Anheuser-Busch, and the Department of Education in New York City. Most recently, she led commercial development and market penetration strategy for an Austin based startup in the renewable energy space.

"We are excited to have Carrie join the NanoTech team. She is going to help us get one step closer to our goal of reducing carbon emissions with our cool roof coating and fireproofing critical infrastructure," says Francis in the statement.

2 Houstonians named to global cohort

Houstonians Allie Danziger and Natasha McDaniel were announced to be joining the Fall 2022 Milestone Makers cohort. Photos courtesy

Two Houston innovators have been named to Nasdaq Entrepreneurial Center's Fall 2022 Milestone Makers cohort, which selects individuals addressing the United Nation's Sustainable Development Goals.

The virtual, 12-week program provides individualized mentorship and executive coaching, as well as access to the Center’s vast network of industry experts to help each founder with his or her milestone. The new cohort was selected through application process, and all hope to improve the lives of and support communities across the globe. The two Houstonians in the current cohort include:

Allie Danziger of Ampersand, which enhances employee retention by ensuring mastery in key skills required for entry-level professionals.
Natasha McDaniel of Lit for Life, which offers culturally relevant reading and writing resources as well as family coaching and educational consulting services.

Applications are open for the Winter 2023 program are now open.

Houston robotics company to ring the bell on Wall Street

The Nasdaq Bell Ringing Ceremony for Nauticus Robotics, Inc. will take place this Thursday. Image via LinkedIn

Houston-based Nauticus Robotics, which went public last month via SPAC, is due to ring the Nasdaq bell on Wall Street.

The company, which now trades under the $KITT ticker, will have its bell ringing ceremony beginning at 2:45 p.m. CT on October 20 and can be viewed via this link.

Nauticus continues to be led by CEO Nicolaus Radford and the current executive team.

“The closing of this business combination represents a pivotal milestone in our company’s history as we take public our pursuit of transforming the ocean robotics industry with autonomous systems,” Radford, who founded what was known as Houston Mechatronics in 2014, said in a news release about the IPO. “Not only is the ocean a tremendous economic engine, but it is also the epicenter for building a sustainable future.”

UH named 2022 Hispanic Serving Institution Leader by U.S. Fulbright program

UH — and its students — have been recognized by the Fulbright organization. Photo courtesy of UH

For the second year in a row, the University of Houston has been named as a 2022 Fulbright Hispanic Serving Institution Leader.

“As the state’s premier Hispanic-Serving Institution and a top Fulbright producer, the University of Houston strives to ensure an environment of inclusion and success for all,” said UH President Renu Khator. “This recognition is yet another milestone that reinforces what so many already know about our institution … that our students are supported both culturally and academically.”

The recognition was announced the Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities annual conference in San Diego on Oct. 10.

The University of Houston recently announced 10 student Fulbright recipients, each prepared to travel far and wide to gain international insights, according to the news release. Since 2018, nearly 50 Fulbright scholarships have been awarded to UH students.

“Enhancing learning and research experiences for students and faculty through the Fulbright Program is important to expanding the University’s international footprint,” says Michael Pelletier, executive director of UH’s Institute for Global Engagement in the release.

Texas investor named among outstanding women in clean energy

Phoebe Wang was honored for her work at Shell Ventures. Photo via LinkedIn

The U.S. Department of Energy recently announced the nine winners of the 2022 Clean Energy Education & Empowerment Awards that honors women for outstanding leadership and accomplishments in clean energy.

“For too long, there has been a significant gender gap in the energy sector, meaning half the population have had a minimized impact on one of our most important industries,” says U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer M. Granholm in a news release. “As we transition to a clean energy economy, we will have to tap into the pool of amazing women working in energy and grow their ranks. That’s why DOE is proud to recognize the winners of this year’s C3E Awards, a diverse group of changemaking women tackling some of the biggest challenges in energy.”

Among the honorees, Phoebe Wang, formerly of Shell Ventures and based in Texas, was recognized in the business category. Wang "leads investments in early- and late-stage startups working on technologies to accelerate the energy transition in the areas of hydrogen, carbon capture utilization and storage, energy storage, mobility, and power," per the release. In the past decade, she has invested more than $150 million startups and has been closely involved in the Rice Alliance for Technology and Entrepreneurship. Last week, Wang was announced to be joining the Amazon Climate Pledge Fund as investment partner.

Now in its 11th year, the C3E Inititive led by the DOE — in collaboration with the MIT Energy Initiative, Stanford University’s Precourt Institute for Energy, and the Texas A&M Energy Institute — will award each winner with a cash gift of $8,000 and national recognition of their efforts.

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Elon Musk's SpaceX is about to make its debut on Wall Street

Money Moves

Elon Musk's rocket company SpaceX will make its debut on Wall Street Friday, June 12, and both institutional and retail investors are expected to gobble up the 555.6 million shares going up for sale at $135 apiece. Musk, already the world's richest man, could become its first trillionaire.

SpaceX is likely to become the biggest IPO ever, with proceeds of around $75 billion. SpaceX hopes to become the first company to send people to Mars. In fact, part of Musk’s future compensation depends on SpaceX eventually establishing a colony of at least 1 million people on the red planet.

Why SpaceX is going public now

In a video conference on Musk's social media platform X, he told JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon that people have suggested for the last 10 years that he take SpaceX public. He's doing it now because the company plans to put 100,000 next-generation Starlink satellites into orbit. Deploying AI data centers in space is a “massive new growth base and you need capital for that,” he said.

Going public provides access to the capital that SpaceX needs. But it also exposes it to more scrutiny from shareholders and more regulatory oversight. That includes filing quarterly financial reports, which critics say incentivizes short-term thinking over longer-term planning and creates unnecessary costs for a company. Securities regulators are currently soliciting public comment on a proposal to require public companies to file the financial reports only twice every year.

How the IPO impacts the company

Musk will hold the majority of a special class of shares, giving him control over decisions related to company strategy, finances and personnel. On the latter, because of his ownership of most of these Class B shares, the only person who can fire Musk as CEO is Musk.

The company credits Musk with being the “driving force” behind its growth, innovation and success. But what happens if Musk is no longer in the picture? SpaceX warns that the loss of Musk could disrupt its ability to execute its strategy as well as hurt its “reputation and relationships with customers, partners and other stakeholders.”

The company also warns that finding a replacement with the same skills and experience as Musk would be time-consuming, if not nearly impossible. As Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives wrote Wednesday, “At the end of the day Musk is SpaceX and SpaceX is Musk.”

What could make or break SpaceX

Currently in the test phase, the gigantic reusable Starship rocket is key to SpaceX realizing Musk's ambitions. Much of the commercial space business hinges on SpaceX developing Starship’s capability to be fully reusable and hearty enough for a quick turnaround between flights. If that doesn't happen, SpaceX warns that putting data centers and satellites in space will take longer and cost more money, meaning it risks customers bailing on the company.

Analysts say that by pioneering reusable rockets, SpaceX has established a clear lead on competitors such as Blue Origin, led by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. The Starlink satellite business competes with, among others, AST SpaceMobile – which is relying on a SpaceX rocket to send its latest generation of satellites into orbit next week.

The prospectus filed last week says SpaceX’s biggest potential market is the sale of business-oriented artificial intelligence products designed to transform how people get work done. It’s an opportunity SpaceX predicts would be worth $22.7 trillion if it could somehow dominate rivals like Anthropic, OpenAI and Microsoft in a highly competitive industry. But the prospectus shows no clear path to profitability for the xAI business, which merged with SpaceX earlier this year.

Why Wall Street is paying attention

If the SpaceX IPO is as successful, the stock could quickly join the Nasdaq 100, a widely followed index that tracks the 100 largest non-financial companies in the composite. That's important because some popular funds, such as the $460 billion QQQ exchange-traded fund, mimic the index and will automatically buy whatever is listed in the index.

Nasdaq recently changed its rules to allow select companies to enter the Nasdaq 100 after just 15 trading days.

S&P Dow Jones Indices, on the other hand, is sticking to established and more traditional thresholds that will not allow SpaceX or other companies with gargantuan IPOs faster entry into its S&P 500 index. That means even high-profile companies will still need to wait for their stocks to trade a full 12 months before they can enter the index.

Companies want to be in the S&P 500 in particular because it's arguably the most important index on Wall Street, with trillions of dollars either mimicking it exactly or benchmarked against it. Vanguard's VOO fund that tracks the S&P 500 has roughly $950 billion invested in it, for example.

NASA unveils Artemis III astronauts at Johnson Space Center in Houston

To the moon

NASA on Tuesday, June 9, revealed the crew for its Artemis III mission, the next step in the space agency's plan to eventually land astronauts on the moon.

The announcement came two months after Artemis II's record-breaking trip around the moon that surpassed the distance record of Apollo 13.

NASA's Randy Bresnik, Frank Rubio, Andre Douglas and the European Space Agency's Luca Parmitano won't fly to the moon or land on the surface. Instead, they’ll orbit Earth while practicing docking their Orion capsule with two lunar landers.

“To the Artemis III crew, we wish you Godspeed on the journey ahead,” said NASA administrator Jared Isaacman.

Elon Musk’s SpaceX and Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin are racing to deliver the lunar landers. The two-week demo is targeted for 2027. Blue Origin suffered a recent setback when its massive rocket exploded during an engine-firing test on the launch pad in Florida, shaking nearby homes and illuminating the sky with an orange fireball.

NASA's Jeremy Parsons said the setback is a learning opportunity and that the space agency is confident Blue Origin's rocket will be ready in time.

NASA's Artemis program aims to return astronauts to the moon's surface for the first time since the 1970s. A recent revamp of the program announced by Isaacman aims to fast-track it similarly to the Apollo era, adding the upcoming spaceflight around Earth before eyeing a lunar landing in 2028.

“We are certainly humbled as a crew to be able to be your crew that executes this Artemis III mission in space,” said Bresnik, Artemis III commander.

Added Douglas, mission specialist: “My brain — it is going a mile a minute right now. But my heart, it is so warm. It is so full."

In May, NASA awarded hundreds of millions of dollars in contracts to four companies, including Blue Origin, to build landers, rovers and drones for a future moon base. Isaacman said the goal of the moon base is to lay the foundation for a Mars expedition.

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