Houston coworking concept to launch to arm members with advisers and health insurance options

new to hou

A new coworking space plans to debut on Houston's northside. Photo courtesy of H-Town Incubator

Freelancers and small business owners might not miss the office politics or mandatory training seminars, but there are quite a few things like mentorship and health insurance that most coworking spaces don't provide. A new Houston company hopes to fill the void.

H-Town Incubator is a 30,000-square-foot coworking space on the northside of town with plans to launch officially in January. The space has desk, cubicle, or office membership options, but also provides its members with advisory services, like legal, accounting, marketing, and more.

"What if an entrepreneur, freelancer, or contractor were given access to an hour or so for a month with legal or accounting," says Stewart Severino, CEO of H-Town Incubator. "You have that real coaching available to you."

Another unprecedented perk is that entrepreneurs can have access to affordable health insurance for as low as $60 a month. Severino says that small businesses can even white label this plan so that their team can have their ID cards labeled with their company's information.

"There are so many underinsured and uninsured people and families out there. It's a big deal," Severino tells InnovationMap. "Because of the co-op we have with our insurance partners, we can put together our own plan and offer that to these individuals."

At this point, about 15,000 square feet of space built out with space for 80 to 100 coworkers to work out of 55 cubicles, 30 offices, and other desk space. The second half of the floor could also be developed for additional offices, desks, and cubicles. The space also has two kitchens and conference rooms that Severino says members won't have any limitations on access, like other models that use credit systems.

"Because we're smaller, we can do that," he says. "We don't have to go that route of being too structured."

With easy access to Bush Intercontinental Airport and neighboring communities like The Woodlands and Spring, Severino says he's already seen both local and international opportunities.

Severino says the idea for the space came organically. He was working out of this office and saw connections happening between various industries. That's how he got the idea to build it into coworking space.

With his 20-year marketing career, Severino says he's seen the smoke and mirrors of "dressed-up" coworking spaces on the market today, he wants to provide something deeper for entrepreneurs.

"When things lack substance, that really bothers me on a personal level," he says. "I want to go out and create something that can serve the individual as a whole."

H-Town Incubator will celebrate a grand opening in mid January, but Severino plans to offer free drop-in days for entrepreneurs to take a trial run. Ultimately, Severino hopes the initiative becomes a collaborative space for companies of all phases and industries to work as resources for each other.

"It will be a dynamic place for sure," he says, adding that he expects to add programming to the mix too.

Urban Harvest is introducing a new location and a new program that accepts government assistance. Erik Scheel/Pexels

Houston nonprofit grows to provide more resources to underserved communities in Houston

Innovating food deserts

For some Houstonians, fresh foods are far away and too expensive to incorporate into their diets regularly. A Houston organization is looking to change that.

Urban Harvest, a 25-year-old nonprofit focused on bringing fresh produce and education to underserved communities, received a $347,000 grant from the Rebuild Texas Fund earlier this year to expand their services across town. The expansion also means a new community farmers market in northeast Houston that opens on Saturday, August 17, at Kashmere Gardens Elementary School (4901 Lockwood Drive).

The farmers market was created to serve a food desert continuing to recover from Hurricane Harvey, according to a news release. Urban Harvest is partnering with Northeast Houston Redevelopment Council and Common Market to create and run the market.

The new market will accept Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, benefits, which offer nutrition assistance to over 637,000 low-income individuals in Harris County. With the addition of the Double Up Houston program, which launched in April 2019, SNAP shoppers receive a dollar-for-dollar match, up to $20 per day, that they will be able to use to purchase fresh produce. In total, there are 13 farm stands across Houston that can access the Double Up SNAP incentive.

"Double Up is new to Houston, this is the first time we have had a Double Up kind of program here in the metroplex, ever," says Janna Roberson, executive director of Urban Harvest. "It is something that is very common in a lot of states."

Fair Food Network, based in Michigan, assists in working the Double Up program in 22 states across the country, including their partnership with Urban Harvest in Texas. "It gives people the opportunity to be able to purchase fruits and vegetables, which are very expensive," said Roberson.

"Last fall we received a grant with a large group of partners for Double Up Houston," Roberson tells InnovationMap. The grant was gifted by Rebuild Texas, a fund created by the Austin-based Michael & Susan Dell Foundation after Harvey.

"Initially, they did not do a lot of funding in Houston because we have a lot of resources here in our city, so their primary task was to fund in other places that had been hit by Hurricane Harvey that didn't have that foundation," adds Roberson. "They were really interested in areas of Houston that had been hit by Harvey and impacted, and how those places related to food and food access."

Urban Harvest, founded in 1994, is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization providing community garden programming, farmers markets, gardening classes, and youth education. The farmers markets, launched in 2014, bring in farmers and producers from within 180 miles of Houston, offering the freshest, local produce and meats available. The organization has a staff of 11 and is located in east downtown Houston.

"There is programming also going at these markets where we are working with the University of Houston and the Houston Food Bank's nutrition office to have people come out to the markets and actually prep fresh produce to be able to show people, with very simple recipes, what you can do with the extra vegetables that you are purchasing," says Roberson.

In the past year, Urban Harvest has been working to strategically grow in the greater Houston area. In September of last year, the organization's main farmers market moved to its current location at 2752 Buffalo Speedway, tripling in size.

"We moved the market and expanded it, presenting some 72 vendors at the market location," Roberson tells InnovationMap. The Buffalo Speedway market operates 52 weeks a year every Saturday from 8 a.m. to noon.

Urban Harvest has over a dozen spots where it has weekly farmers markets around town. Courtesy of Urban Harvest

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Houston hardtech accelerator names 8 founders to 2026 cohort

hardtech fellows

Hardtech-focused organization Activate has named 50 new members to its 2026 cohort of scientists, which includes eight startups joining Activate Houston.

Activate aims to support scientists at "the outset of their entrepreneurial journey." It partners with U.S.-based funders and research institutions to support its fellows in developing high-impact technology. Its fellows receive a living stipend, research and development funding, connections from Activate's robust network of mentors and access to a curriculum specific to the program for two years.

This year's fellows represent 41 companies from 22 U.S. cities and 11 states.

“This cohort clearly demonstrates that the next industry-defining companies won't choose between modern technology and deep science; they'll be built by combining both,” Cyrus Wadia, CEO of Activate, said in the announcement. “These are the scientists and engineers turning our most urgent global challenges into the companies that will deliver a more sustainable future.”

The Houston fellows are working across the energy, space, AI infrastructure and agriculture sectors. They include:

  • Sophie Clare Broun, founder of Anning Corporation, which is producing clean hydrogen by stimulating naturally occurring geologic deposits
  • Kathy Andersen, founder of Brint Tech, which builds optical sensing systems that quantify hydrogen for infrastructure operators
  • Dorsa Talebi, founder of Kinetiq Drive, which builds rare-earth-free, contact-free electric motors with wireless rotors for small appliances and heavy industry alike
  • Neethu Pottackal, founder of Nivera, which is developing natural, edible coatings made from agricultural byproducts to reduce food waste and extend the shelf life of fresh food
  • Jonathan Huffman, founder of Orbital Arc, which is shrinking spacecraft propulsion to a microchip powerful enough for deep space
  • Tim Lee, founder of Renesin, which develops advanced materials for faster, more efficient AI hardware
  • Joshua Livingston, founder of Selerra Separations, which is developing high-performance membranes that cut the cost and energy consumption of water treatment
  • Wenli Jiang, founder of SwieNitro Recovery, which is developing technology that converts nitrogen-rich waste streams into valuable fertilizer

"Home to the largest concentration of engineers in the United States and a dense ecosystem of Fortune 100 and Fortune 500 companies, Houston is uniquely positioned for scientists tackling large-scale industrial challenges. Activate Houston fellows are connected to the city's deep networks in energy, chemicals, and materials," Activate said in the announcement.

Activate named its inaugural Houston cohort in 2024. It has other hubs in Boston, New York, and Berkley, California—where Activate is headquartered. The organization also offers a virtual and remote cohort, known as Activate Anywhere. Nationally, it has supported 346 fellows and 276 companies since 2015.

Activate Houston is led by managing director Jeremy Pitts, who co-founded Greentown Labs in Boston. It is based out of the Ion. The latest cohort is Activate Houston's third. Read more about the last year's cohort here.

Rice, Houston Methodist award $90K for cancer research projects

seed grants

Rice University’s Synthesis X Center, in partnership with the Houston Methodist Neal Cancer Center, announced earlier this month the organizations would award $90,000 in seed grant funding to two projects that could help fight cancer. One would ease the pain of chemotherapy, while the other could change the way the progression of leukemia is tracked.

“We’re excited to be collaborating with the Neal Cancer Center to support collaborative, novel and interdisciplinary proposals to improve cancer care and outcomes,” Han Xiao, Rice professor of chemistry and the director of the SynthX Center, said in a news release. “Together, we can achieve translational excellence.”

The projects

Chemotherapy is one of the most effective cancer treatments, but it can be hard on the body. The human body doesn’t like being injected with radioactive material, especially the skin around the injection point, which can become extremely irritated. For patients in long-term treatment, the skin irritation can be more than just a bother; it can lead to infections that are dangerous to a compromised immune system.

Angel A Marti, a professor of chemistry at Rice University, and Biana Godin, an associate professor of nanoscience at Houston Methodist Research Institute, are experimenting with metal nanoclusters as a way to block radiation at the injection site. The nanocluster could be applied in a cream or a gel on the skin, serving as a type of shield against the harsh radioactive material.

Meanwhile, Yuan Ma, an assistant professor of chemistry at Rice, and Shu-Hsia Chen, a professor of immunology at Houston Methodist Research Institute, are working with m6A. Discovered in the 1970s, m6A is the most prevalent chemical modifier found in mRNA in mammals. It is prevalent in many cancers, including leukemia.

Ma and Chen are working on measuring the amount of m6A in leukemia to see if it can determine the most effective cancer treatments. The team is also experimenting with ways to shut off m6A to see if it makes current leukemia treatments more effective.

Progress from SynthX

SynthX was first launched in April 2024 to turn research from Rice and Houston Methodist into real-world cancer treatments. Within a year, the center had secured $1.5 million in grant money to work on crossing the blood-brain barrier in brain cancer treatments. These latest awards show that SynthX Center continues to bridge the worlds of research and clinical practice.

“This collaboration reflects a shared commitment to team science in cancer research,” Daniela Matei, the director of the Houston Methodist Neal Cancer Center, added in the release. “These are the types of translational and pioneering projects that lead to transformation in patient care.”'

The SynthX Center awarded $90,000 in seed grants to three teams in 2025 and $80,000 to three teams in 2024.

Tesla self-driving mode wasn't to blame in Houston-area crash, report suggests

Tesla news

Federal safety investigators looking into a runaway Tesla that killed a grandmother in her home say the driver had pressed the accelerator to full speed, suggesting the vehicle's self-driving software was not to blame.

The driver had told police that he had the self-driving software turned on, but a report from the National Transportation Safety Board concluded that he had actually overridden that feature when he pushed hard on the pedal. Moments later the Tesla Model 3 raced down a residential street in Katy, Texas, at highway speeds, slammed into a brick home and killed a 76-year-old woman standing in the front room.

The crash last month drew national attention because Tesla CEO Elon Musk is seeking to reassure the public its self-driving feature is safe as he prepares to turn hundreds of thousands of Teslas already on the road into fully automatic vehicles and begin selling two-seated Cybercabs missing steering wheels and pedals.

The crash came two months after officials at a separate federal agency, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, announced it was elevating a 2024 investigation of the self-driving feature to new “engineering analysis” level, raising the possibility of a recall of 3.2 million Tesla vehicles.

That NHTSA probe was triggered by crashes where the self-driving feature failed to alert drivers to take control in fog and other poor visibility conditions.

The agency opened an investigation last year into 58 incidents in which Teslas reportedly violated traffic safety laws while using self-driving technology, leading to more than a dozen crashes and fires and nearly two dozen injuries.

Separate from the National Transportation Safety Board, NHTSA is also looking into the Tesla house crash in Texas, one of 46 “special crash” investigations of Tesla's self-driving or driver-assistance technology in the past decade, according to the agency’s records. In more than a dozen of those crashes, at least one person — a driver, passenger or pedestrian — was killed.

Tesla had originally called its driver assistance software Full Self-Driving, or FSD, but auto experts and regulators complained it was misleading because drivers must always keep their eyes on the road and be ready to take over at any time.

The company has since changed the name to Full Self-Driving (Supervised).

Video of the Katy, Texas, accident shows the Tesla traveling at more than 70 mph (112.65 kilometers per hour), jumping a curb then tearing across a lawn before crushing through a brick wall of a home. A woman standing feet away, Martha Avila, was found amid piles of crumbling plaster, split beams and bits of furniture and rushed to a hospital but died.

Sales of Tesla cars still haven't recovered fully from boycotts last year over Musk's political stands, but the stock is rising anyway as he has successfully shifted attention away from the sales figures. He says they matter less now that the company is on the cusp of major technological advances, such as turning Teslas into hands-free vehicles and having its Optimus robots take over for humans for tasks at home and work.

Tesla stock has risen 22% in the past year and is currently trading at 170 times expected annual earnings compared to 20 for the S&P 500.

For its second-quarter financial results, financial analysts surveyed by FactSet expect earnings per share will barely budge — 32 cents versus 33 cents a year earlier — continuing a sixth quarter streak of flat or falling profits.

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